johnromkey

Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal

2009-10-24T23:23:11Z

I enjoy steel-cut oatmeal for breakfast. It’s a healthful meal, but on its own, day after day, it can be bland and boring. So I’m trying to spruce it up a bit. Today’s experiment was for a chilly, rainy fall day: pumpkin pie oatmeal.

I prefer steel-cut oatmeal to regular (rolled) or instant oatmeal. I think it’s healthier – I also think it’s got a more interesting flavor and texture. It takes a little more care though, and takes longer to cook.


Steel-cut oatmeal	Rolled oats

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[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

TV’s back

2009-06-08T13:45:05Z

The between-season TV drought is ending, not that I miss watching TV regularly much. A few of the things coming on that I think friends are interested in:

“Weeds” returns tonight on Showtime, and this year it’s paired with “Nurse Jackie”, which looks interesting although isn’t getting great reviews

There’s no new season of “Top Chef” this summer; we’re getting “Top Chef Masters” (starting on Wednesday June 10th) instead, which is “Top Chef” with established chefs (some of whom have been judges on the regular show) and a different team.

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[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

“The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over”

2009-05-19T12:40:45Z

Um, excuse me, but when did it start?

[From CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Steele: GOP must focus on conservative principles « - Blogs from CNN.com]

[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

Whenever I Go Away, I Want to Start Anew…

2009-05-13T21:43:01Z

…a new project.

For some reason when I’m away from home and sitting in a hotel, I often really want to code.

I enjoy the initial act of creating something much more than I enjoy the act of completing and deploying it. This has been the case pretty much since I started creating things. There’s a thrill for me in the initial exploration of an idea, the initial design of a piece of software or web site, and in learning how to use new tools or pieces of software to build the thing that I want to build.

I lose interest when it comes to polishing it and deploying it, though.

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[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

‘Lost’ Season Finale Prediction

2009-05-13T20:19:27Z

Not having read any spoilers, I predict that they set off the nuke and that the entire cast is propelled 150,000 years into the past where they become the progenitors of humanity… wait, sorry, wrong show.

[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

Tax Protests: Teabagging

2009-04-15T19:53:24Z

Just a footnote about the tax protests: the conservative group behind them has associated the name ‘Tea’ with them, and some people are referring to the protests as teabagging, which - if you don’t know what it means already - you might take a moment to check out, because it’s hilarious.

Even better is the Rachel Maddow report on it that Adam showed me:

[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

“You Can’t Spend Your Way Out of Debt”

2009-04-15T19:34:10Z

There are tax protests going on today, because the government is spending a god-awful amount of money - more god-awful than usual. Or maybe they’re because a group of people who are accustomed to getting their way aren’t getting their way after 8 years. I’m not going to defend or attack what our government is doing at this point, but there is a sentiment going around these tax protests that I feel the need to say something about.

“You can’t spend your way out of debt”

Really? REALLY? Because last I checked, that’s exactly how most companies operated - most companies, at the start, have no cash flow and require a loan or investment - which they spend - in order to keep going until they can build up cash flow and start making money. If that cannot work then I guess we haven’t had any successful businesses in the last couple of hundred years.

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[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

‘Kings’ Premiere Available for Free

2009-03-17T13:32:19Z

NBC’s new show ‘Kings’ has intrigued me… the biggest selling points of it for me are that it stars Ian McShane (Al Swearengen from ‘Deadwood’)… we spent part of the weekend trying to explain the appeal and charm of Al Swearengen to someone, and likely failed.

The show is an alternate-universe modern retelling of the biblical story of David (replete with Goliath tanks). While I don’t have much need in my life for retellings of bible stories, the pieces fell together to make this one look interesting to me.

The show has received critical acclaim while, unfortunately, not many people seem to have watched the premiere. It’s still sitting on our DVR as we haven’t had a chance to watch it yet either, but I’m looking forward to some high quality Ian McShane time, even if it will be weird that he’s not swearing up a storm.

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[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

Omnious Sounding

2009-02-23T01:44:44Z

Yahoo seems to have changed the layout of Yahoo Movies recently. I was looking at what was playing locally and saw this:

It sounds ominous. If I don’t sign in are they going to close The Nugget?

[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

Fixing Perl after MacOS X Security Update 2009-001

2009-02-17T02:36:26Z

Apple’s first security update of 2009 for MacOS X may solve some security issues in the OS but it also seriously breaks Perl by installing old versions of some modules along with Perl. It looks like Perl works okay for things that MacOS X uses it for, but if you do development using it or have installed other modules than what it came bundled with you may find that it no longer works.

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[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

In the Category of “Just No”

2009-01-24T15:43:17Z

Do you ever turn on the television and think “Oh my, why hasn’t Fox TV adapted Ab Fab into a US sitcom?”

Me neither.

Unfortunately, it appears that Fox never got the memo, and are in the process of doing just that. Complicating matters is the fact that Jennifer Saunders is helping write the new version. Which means that I’ll probably try watching it at least once, damn it.

[From Ab Fab New Pilot For Fox TV]

[Originally published at dot dot romkey. Please leave any comments there. You can login there via OpenID using your Livejournal account.]

Email change

2009-01-16T00:18:48Z

I'm going to try out switching apocalypse.org's email to Google Apps... following in others' footsteps. I'm looking forward to not maintaining or hosting my own mail system anymore.

I may be unreachable via my normal email address for a while (hopefully no more than a few hours). If you need to contact me for anything urgent, try my gmail address (romkey - at - gmail.com)

If I'm still forwarding mail to you from apocalypse, don't worry, I've copied that over to Google and it should still works (crossing fingers now).

Updates on Adam

2008-12-04T13:23:19Z

If you're trying to find more info on what's going on with Adam, check http://community.livejournal.com/qgbs/

Brian Eno Is Alive and Well in My iPhone

2008-10-10T01:36:00Z

Given the current events in the US (or global) economy, "Bloom" rescues me from continually listening to only chill-out music and Radiohead's most apocalyptic songs. Instead, "Bloom" allows me to anesthetize (or lobotomize) myself with a mini-Eno, embedded in my iPhone, happy to produce ambient music on demand or from my cue. ... Tap out a few notes and it will play them back, looping them into a piece of ambient fuzz that could just as well be a song from "Music for Airports" . You can freeze the melody from evolving if you like it, but there are no provisions for saving, recording or sharing it, which is just as well.

Originally published at dot dot romkey.
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Showing a Column as a UNIX Timestamp in MySQL

2008-10-06T02:54:02Z

While MySQL has quite an assortment of date and time formats which it supports, I usually find it most convenient to store timestamps as an INT and just put the UNIX seconds since the epoch value in there. ... A drawback is that sometimes when I'm working with the database by hand it's annoying to see the timestamps as big numbers - sometimes it would be very helpful to see them as dates and times. ... The "FROM_UNIXTIME()" function will interpret a numeric column's value as a UNIX seconds-from-the-epoch value and show it as a date and timestamp. Using it I can easily do things like: SELECT URL, FROM_UNIXTIME(Timestamp) FROM AccessLog; and see it as: +---------------------------+--------------------------+ | URL | FROM_UNIXTIME(timestamp) | +---------------------------+--------------------------+ | explore/users/94 | 2008-10-05 22:49:39 | +---------------------------+--------------------------+ rather than +---------------------------+------------+ | URL | timestamp | +---------------------------+------------+ | explore/users/94 | 1223261379 | +---------------------------+------------+

Originally published at dot dot romkey.
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MacOS X DVDs - Versions and Saving a Little Money on Them

2008-10-06T02:20:55Z

The family pack is licensed for use for up to five machines in one household, and lists for $199, a pretty good deal for staying legal at less than the cost of two single user licenses. ... At the time I wrote this, they were charging $26 less than list for the single user edition and $44.51 less than list for the family pack , both with free shipping. ... You should be forewarned that, in my experience, the restore DVD that comes with a computer will only work with that computer or class of computers. ... Amazon also has a pretty good deal on Leopard Server: $104.51 off the 10 user version (normal list price $499) and $168.46 off the unlimited user version (normal list price $999).

Originally published at dot dot romkey.
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Working Through a Catalyst View Rendering Problem

2008-10-02T02:41:31Z

I've been adding some belated email notifications to UVFood and in the process I ran into a frustrating problem: it wasn't working at all. ... Views are for rendering pages, but Catalyst::View::Email takes already-rendered text and then emails it somewhere. ... I've written templates for the messages I need to send using HTML::Mason, so I need to render these templates before I can send a message.

...The fix is to fully qualify the view name, ie: my $v = $c->view('UVFoodApp::View::Mason'); Now I'm getting the correct component.

Originally published at dot dot romkey.
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David Foster Wallace Has Left the Building

2008-09-14T02:35:28Z

I was imagining that my next post here would be about the new iPods Apple announced this week, or some software-related thing.

I hadn't imagined I'd be writing a reminiscence of David Foster Wallace, who apparently hanged himself on September 12th.

I remember around the time that "Infinite Jest" came out, several of my friends were talking about it. ceciliatan was enraptured by it, read it cover to cover and then wrapped around and read it again. I wasn't as caught up in it; in fact, the first time I tried to read it I got caught in the chapter where someone was looping seriously on smoking pot and masturbation, and I gave up on it.

More...

Originally published at dot dot romkey.
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Apple's iPod Event on September 9th

2008-09-09T13:54:36Z

Apple loves Tuesdays. Tuesday is when new music and DVDs come out, so Tuesday is when music and movies show up in the iTunes Store. Apple also has a tendency to release new products on Tuesdays. And they often have "special events" on Tuesdays as well.

Tuesday September 9th 2008 (today as I finish this; I meant to get this out sooner) is a special Apple event called "Let's Rock" - although they haven't specified, it's clearly related to the iPod/music side of their business. And it follows a pattern they've established over the last few years of announcing new iPods in the fall. This gets them out in time for the Christmas season.

What should you expect on Tuesday? I would expect refreshes across the line - new iPod Nanos, Classics and Touches. Leaked photos and case specs of the new Nano have already hit the net - expect it to be tall and thin again, turning it on its side to get a widescreen aspect ratio.

I wouldn't expect the iPod Classic to get more than updated firmware and a bigger disk. Similarly for the Touch, it seems likely that it will get a storage bump or price drop or both, but unless Apple has something up its sleeve, it's unlikely to change substantially. There are always fantasy rumors out there about what's coming up - WiMax support, for instance, but there's no indication that this is likely. Certainly it would be nice to someday have wireless connectivity available across the whole iPod family.

There are rumors about the Touch getting a camera and GPS to bring it in line with the iPhone, but I doubt the GPS at least. Apple uses a networked assist in computing the location, and the Touch is much less likely to have a network connection than the iPhone is. And you're not going to be able to use the Touch to download Google Maps in your car. I doubt they'll add GPS support.

If they do come out with a bigger Touch (64GB? the largest touch currently is 32GB) then I would expect a 32GB iPhone to be announced as well. Last year's event saw the 16GB iPhone announced and it doesn't seem like out of the question that they'd do the same thing this year. The unfortunate downside for all of us who already have iPhone 3Gs is that I can't see us being able to buy a new, bigger phone at the normal price because AT&T is now subsidizing the phones up-front. Last year we could, because AT&T was giving Apple a cut of the money each month. But now there's no reason AT&T would want to subsidize our phones twice for one contract.

What about the poor, lonely iPod Shuffle? It doesn't seem likely for an update unless it sees a major redesign. The form factor is tremendous as it is. They currently top out at 2GB - do you really want a 4GB iPod Shuffle without a display? I think a display is the most likely feature to add to the Shuffle - somewhere down the road - but I'm not sure that this is the time.

Expect iTunes 8 to arrive. iTunes 7 has been with us for many minor version numbers now, and it's about time we saw 8. Rumors hold out for a new 'grid view' in it, a new music suggestion feature (of course advising you to buy from the iTunes Store), HD TV and movie support (currently only available on the Apple TV).

Expect iPhone/iPod Touch software version 2.1. This should fix a lot of the bugs in the 2.0 - 2.0.2, and is rumored to introduce a new set of features which were held back from the developer test releases.

There's a possibility of MacOS X 10.5.5 arriving. Based on test seeds of it, it appears near release, and the timing would be right, although rumor has it there are still known bugs in it.

There has been a rumor of 'iTunes Ultimate', a subscription-based service where you pay a certain amount per year to have access to all the music that the iTunes Store offers. When your subscription lapses, you can no longer play the music. I think it's unlikely Apple will offer this at this time; they've been negative in the past about subscription-based services. If they do, expect that it will require software updates for the entire iPod/iPhone line, the Apple TV and iTunes. Possibly Quicktime and MacOS X as well. If they ever do offer a subscription service, it may also drive buyers to purchase new iPods; it's possible Apple might not offer updated software to handle subscribed music for older models of iPods.

It seems possible that Apple TV might receive a software update. There has been little discussion of this, but I'd love to see the iTunes App Store offer applications for the Apple TV. The software running on it should be very similar to what's running on the iPhone. The big issue with it would be input devices. If Apple were to offer Bluetooth support (built-in or via a USB stick) for the Apple TV, it could work with Bluetooth keyboards and mice. Sure, you wouldn't be able to shake your Apple TV in order to control a game, but the availability of applications for it would help make it a much more compelling platform. The complete lack of rumors about this at this time makes me think it's incredibly unlikely that they'll release such support on September 9th. HD movie support might require a software update.

What I think we will not see is new or updated Macintosh computers. I doubt Apple would want to steal the thunder from iPod updates; they're very good at focussing on one product (or product line) at a time. The long-rumored Apple tablet could be marketed as a Mac or as an iPod... if it's marketed as an iPod it might be introduced at an event like today's, but I doubt it as it's clear the focus of the event is music.

Perhaps the Beatles catalog will finally hit the iTunes Store today? That's one rumor that has finally died out.

Finally, Apple's annual educational/iPod promotion is still going on for another week. The deal is that if you buy certain (new, not refurbished) Macintoshes with certain new (not refurbished) iPods (and not the iPhone), they'll give you up to a $199 rebate. You have to buy form Apple directly and deal with an online rebate, but you end up with a free iPod Touch (or other iPod) from the deal. You can also get a $99 rebate on certain printers, as well. In the past, Apple has announced new iPods before this deal has ended and the deal has not been extended to the new iPods. So it's a nice way for Apple to clear out some old inventory, but don't expect to be able to get the new cool new gear with it.

So, in summary, I don't expect anything major from today's announcements. Possible lower prices and more storage, a few new iTunes and iTunes Store features, a new Nano, updated software. It doesn't look likely that Apple's going to release a shocking new product or feature. The iPhone set the bar so high that people are expecting a new iPhone-level product every announcement, and are doomed to disappointment.

Unconstrained by reality, what would you like to see Apple release or announce today?

Originally published at dot dot romkey.
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Welcome to dot-dot-romkey

2008-09-08T04:25:22Z

At times I lament the fact that I don't write quick hacks the way I did years ago. Of course, my brain and mind aren't the same as they were twenty (or more) years ago, and that contributes to the problem. And the environment that I work in has changed and become much more complex... where two decades ago a piece of software most likely ran from the command-line, now it may need to live in a networked environment and work with a web server and talk to other pieces of software in order to do anything remotely interesting. Which is fascinating but means that software is a lot more complicated than it used to be.

But the biggest problem for me has clearly been that there's just too much going on - too many things pulling on my attention. I have too many other concerns. That's natural as you age from twenty to forty, I think. Your perspectives widen, your involvement in the world (hopefully) deepens. You develop deeper relationships, possibly you gain family.

My mind has often been overwhelmed by being involved in too many things and simply having too much stuff to take care of. For a while it was two homes, which was both good and bad. The convenience and sense of being involved in two places was very nice. But the effort of caring for them, making them both a home, worrying about them when we weren't there, and the lack of depth of engagement were all frustrating.

So, one of the main themes in my life the past couple of years has been "simplify".

For many years I offered access to 'apocalypse.org' to friends, friends of friends, and worthwhile projects. Sharing access to computer resources with people who needed them was an old MIT traditional and, I felt, a noble thing. When I started sharing apocalypse.org it, getting Internet access was still difficult. The web was nascent, and the only ways individuals connected to the Internet were dialup and T1 lines. Things obviously changed and now it's easy to find high quality free email access and cheap web hosting. Having other people using the system and worse, being responsible for it as they came to depend on it, was a much bigger brain-drain than I think anyone was aware of. Not to mention the occasional scuffles with one or two people with an outrageous sense of entitlement. Finally it was clear that it was time to stop, which I've done in two stages. At this point apocalypse.org is home only to me and my partner and one remaining web site. It's a huge relief not to be responsible to, or for, other people in that way.

I've run three blogs for a while - The Apocalypse Blog, because I find the subject the 'apocalypse' rather fascinating; Shiny Things, which I started because friends would ask me for computer and gadget recommendations; and Blue Forest Blog, which I intended as a development blog for my software company, Blue Forest Research.

As conditions have worsened in the US and the world at large, the Apocalypse Blog has lost some of the charm it held for me. I also found it difficult to put the level of effort into that I think it really needed in order to grow. It was also too much a link blog with too little original content. I may continue to post in it though I've let it go for quite a while now. I may just retire it.

I lost my way in Shiny Things and became a bit too concerned with posting articles on how to save money buying gadgets. I'm interesting in continuing some of what I was trying to do there, but not the way I was going towards the end.

And I never really managed to do the level of writing for the Blue Forest Blog that I'd hoped to do.

Why did I have three blogs? I felt like it was a good idea to keep each one focussed on its particular area.

And there's a fourth - my LiveJournal, which I've used more for keeping in touch with friends and personal things.

I feel too spread out, and I haven't felt much like continuing in this vein. So, in the interest of simplifying, I'm retiring Shiny Things, Blue Forest Blog and partially retiring my LiveJournal. Having three blogs also dilutes my presence on the web when I would be better served by concentrating it. Instead of these blogs, I'm launching this new blog: dot-dot-romkey. I wanted to call it "dot-romkey" but that didn't really work, so "dot-dot-romkey" it is.

I'll be cross-posting articles on dot-dot-romkey to my LiveJournal in order to make it easier for friends to follow it if they want. I may once in a while post something a little less professional only to LJ. And I'll use dot-dot-romkey for whatever topic is on my mind. It'll most likely be computer or food related, but I'm sure I'll stray from those topics.

Finally, in the spirit of simplification I'm trying to streamline the design of the new blog. No more print or email buttons, no more social networking buttons... does having a digg button on your blog ever actually encourage anyone to digg it? Doesn't everyone who regularly uses digg already have a digg toolbar or Javascript applet that they have ready for things they want to digg?

I am bowing to practicality and will still have a sidebar which will only provide some assistance with navigating this blog, and pointers to my activity on a few other sites that are a part of my regular online life and may be of some interest or use to you, my reader.

My goal is for this blog to be a tool and not a huge project unto itself - I'm aiming for simpler, not more complex. I will tweak it from time to time and I will update the theme occasionally.

I am providing OpenID support to make it easier for people to comment. OpenID should allow people with accounts on OpenID providers (like LiveJournal) to comment without having to create an account for themselves. Comments are still screened, if only to stop spam, which is still an overwhelming problem for many blogs.

Originally published at dot dot romkey.
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Fall TV Season

2008-09-07T01:40:28Z

After not much of a summer, it is apparently now fall. The last couple of days were much more like August should have been, when it was being more like October. And now we have a hurricane.

Plus, the fall TV season starts.

There are very few new shows coming up that have my attention. A couple which y'all might be interested in are "True Blood", a vampire show on HBO which looks very interesting and is being produced by Alan Ball ("American Beauty", "Six Feet Under"). There's also "Little Britain USA", also on HBO. "Little Britain" is a sketch show from the UK which is very, very gay. And funny. And has a bit of narration from Tom Baker of Dr. Who fame. The new show is "Little Britain" transposed into the US in some way which I'll have to wait to see.

There's also "Fringe", on Fox, which has been getting a lot of press. It's another JJ Abrams show and looks very X-Files-ish. I'll try it but I'm not holding out much hope that it'll be interesting. "True Blood" is definitely my pick for most likely to succeed.

"True Blood" starts this Sunday, September 7th. "Fringe" starts Tuesday, September 9th. "Little Britain USA" starts Sunday, September 28th.

Salon, by the way, has a fun article comparing TV shows to BBQ Pork Ravioli Bites, which should have made me want to stop watching TV but instead unfortunately made me want to try BBQ Pork Ravioli Bites.

Sunday Morning Fun

2008-06-15T14:44:54Z

I figured I'd get up this morning and go out for breakfast at Dana's by the Gorge. I've been enjoying them recently, they make good pancakes and it seemed like a good morning for a treat.

First I needed to check in on UVFood, which had thankfully not fallen over during the night. It's not that it has been falling over, but I did deploy the big new update to it last night before I passed out, and today the big ad comes out.

And it hadn't fallen over, but it was getting a lot of traffic! And I could see some things going wrong... a photo not showing up, a CSS file not being found... a typo I made on the front page (grrr). The great thing is that people who were taking a look kept looking; they didn't just see the front page and go away. They're actually reading listings, looking at photos and reading articles.

Then I started to freak out a little about all the stuff that wasn't there that I want to be there and how they'd never come back because it wasn't there (not that they'd know).

So breakfast was the other half of last night's burrito from Gusanoz, and lots of coffee. And advil.

Despite the coffee, I'm a bit more calm right now. Everything's going well with the site (though it still needs more beating), although I just realized that I forgot to put the banner ad on listing pages in the new layout.

It's been a long time since I've done anything that anyone else has really used... especially strangers. Strangers using it is both better and worse emotionally than people I know using it.

I've got a lot of work to do!

Ready for Beating!

2008-06-15T03:43:14Z

I've got http://www.uvfood.com/ deployed with its new look

This is the biggest change it will have for a while.

Right now most of the work has gone into the front page. The rest of the site has had minimal work done to it, just enough to get it working again and looking somewhat consistent with the new look of the front page.

The front page design was done by rfreebern, not me, though I've done the work to integrate it with uvfood. So blame me for the problems and give him the credit for how the good parts look.

If you have a little time to beat on it, please do... and let me know if you run into problems. I'm aware of a few glitches which I'm too tired to go after right now. I'll be working on those and (hoepfully) finishing menu uploading tomorrow.

Thanks!

It Seems to Me

2008-06-13T22:46:51Z

That there should be a keyboard command in Emacs to make it reskin my web-site for me, while I nap.

That is, after Emacs has finished cleaning my desk.

BSG Propoganda Posters!

2008-06-13T21:55:54Z

And "How to Spot a Cylon"

http://shinythings.romkey.com/2008/06/13/battlestar-galactica-propoganda-posters/

really should be getting to work now :-(