WombatNationSpeech Applications, Soccer, Hacking, Intellectual Property, and Incinerating ToiletsLinden Street on First Friday- July 27, 2008 Linden Street Brewery in Oakland has been throwing open houses on every Friday for the last 6 months or so, with free beer (two beers, usually their Common Lager and a beer from Drake&8217;s), free food (contributions to the basket by the taps help buy next week&8217;s food), and a shared gas grill (my friends ...http://www.wombatnation.com/2008/07/linden-street-on-first-friday Updating Substring in Column in MySQL- July 26, 2008 Today I needed to make the same kind of update to a field in a few rows of a large database table. There were too many rows to do it with a separate SQL update statement per row, so I hunted down the MySQL REPLACE function. Okay, it was only 6 rows, but I needed ...http://www.wombatnation.com/2008/07/updating-substring-in-column-in-mysql Population after Katrina- July 23, 2008 While analyzing a bunch of US Census data at work to build out an even more comprehensive geographical database for Voxify&8217;s speech apps, I ran into an unexpected error. I wrote a Python script to parse a CSV file that contains population data from 2000 and estimates for 2001-2007. The code extracted the data I ...http://www.wombatnation.com/2008/07/population-after-katrina Healdsburg Harvest Century Bike Tour- July 21, 2008 Yesterday I rode the 60-mile route of the 2008 Healdsburg Harvest Century bike tour. Some friends and I did it at a very leisurely pace, finishing in a little over 4 hours, which included 20-30 minutes hanging out at the rest stops shoving down piles of food. Or at least I was doing that. The ...http://www.wombatnation.com/2008/07/healdsburg-harvest-century-bike-tour InBev Swallowing Busch- July 20, 2008 Love this cartoon by Ben Sargent on the InBev acquisition of Anheuser-Busch. Over the last few months I&8217;ve turned on quite a few friends to the rich and varied aroma and flavors of Belgian beers. Although it&8217;s just a cartoon, I agree with William that you obviously shouldn&8217;t stereotype the palette of a person based ...http://www.wombatnation.com/2008/07/inbev-swallowing-busch Best of the East Bay- July 14, 2008 Last Friday my wife and I celebrated our 15th anniversary by going to Linden Street Brewery for their Friday afternoon open house and then the Oakland Museum of California for the Best of the East Bay party. Both were excellent. Some of our friends brought a penne pasta salad with fresh-grated parmesan and grilled tri-tip ...http://www.wombatnation.com/2008/07/best-of-the-east-bay Blenheims are Back- July 10, 2008 We had a huge harvest from our Blenheim apricot tree four years ago, and this year the tree is bearing a similar amount of fruit. Rogue backyard animals got 30 or so, we&8217;ve picked about 60 and I think there are another 75 apricots on what is now a very old tree. It had been ...http://www.wombatnation.com/2008/07/blenheims-are-back Cyclo-cross- July 10, 2008 Maybe this is the year I finally buy a cyclo-cross bike and experience the gut wrenching thrill of shouldering my bike up a steep, muddy hill, bouncing down trails through the trees, and then afterward drinking Belgian beers and eating grilled sausages with the people who lapped me repeatedly. The July issue of Wired has a ...http://www.wombatnation.com/2008/07/cyclo-cross |