slaggle dot com

Blog Moving

Feb 7

It’s been a fun ride on slaggle dot com for all these years, but I think it’s time to move on and focus more on my domain, timgourley.com. I’m going to move all personal network sites under that banner and go from there. I’m also changing over to tumblr instead of wordpress, so the format will be a lot different and easier to manage multiple types of content. So head over to http://blog.timgourley.com and enjoy the new blog!

I’ll keep this up for a bit until you can update your bookmarks, then I’ll just add a redirect for both the main page and the RSS feed. The RSS redirect will stay up indefinitely for those too lazy to update your RSS readers And if you have no idea what that last bit meant, don’t worry about it as it doesn’t apply to you.

GO TO THE NEW BLOG NOW

Thoughts on Food

Dec 7

Posted by tim in Random | 1 Comment

Someone recommended to me that I watch a documentary on the food industry as it stands in the world today. The documentary is called Food, Inc. and presents a compelling case for how bad the food industry has become. It discusses the mistreatment of chicken and how cattle are engineered to be large and doped up. It discusses how it’s cheaper to feed cows heavily-subsidized corn instead of their natural diet of grass and it helps beef them up (pun intended). Factory farms are the de facto now for raising animals and by all appearances it seems to be a gross mistreatment of animals.

Another section of the film went into how genetically altered soybean seeds are being tightly controlled by companies such as Monsanto and basically forcing farmers to use them and abide by their strict patent rules or else face a team of patent enforcement agents and lawyers. For those already struggling to make ends meet with farming and the cost of planting non-modified seeds it puts farmers in a tough spot. And you better be ready to have all your documents in order if winds even accidentally carry Monsanto seeds into your fields. Farming needs an open source movement for seeds that are resistant to herbicides and not subject to patents and license agreements.

That documentary opened my eyes to a side of the food industry I had never cared to even think about before. I can’t say it surprises me that people are thinking more about the bottom line than sustainable and ethical practices, but I would think that in this day and age it wouldn’t be so bad. So I started looking around online and found another documentary talking about the business practices of Monsanto, The World According to Monsanto. You can watch this one online here.

After watching that I found a bunch of videos online depicting some of the cruelties that people have documented that are still going on in these big factory farms, or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Videos here, here, and here all depict some of the ways animals are mistreated. Those links can be kind of graphic, so be careful.

I have to say that learning so much about the way farm animals are raised nowadays for flesh kind of made me sick to my stomach. Do we need $1 hamburgers at the price of cruelty and unsanitary conditions? Do we need cheap fatty food with genetically modified animal flesh and heavily-subsidized processed corn products? How should we ethically fix this mess?

One way would be to switch to true free-range farming. Not the kind of "cage free" and "free range" that allows farmers to get away with allowing access to the outdoors but never giving the animal the chance to take that opportunity. What I’m talking about is allowing the animals to feed on their natural foods, act on their instincts, grow free from excessive antibiotics and hormones, and be handled with respect and care from birth to slaughter.

Alternatively, we could encourage people to go vegan. Yes, we’ve evolved as omnivores, but we’re also creatures of reason that can consider the fact that we don’t necessarily need to take lives for food anymore. Since it is not a necessity to take an animal life for ours, the question becomes: should we? Jonathan Safran Foer recently put out an interesting book titled Eating Animals that tackles this subject as he sought out answers for how food gets to his plate. You can see a video of him discussing the book on the Ellen show. I’m really enjoying this book. He presents his viewpoint as someone who has tried being vegetarian off and on over the years, but it wasn’t an important topic to him until he became a father. Then he wanted to know everything he could in order to make an informed decision for himself and his child.

I’ve read several articles on why people go vegan and how factory farming affects vegetarianism. I’ve read articles comparing household pets to dinner and scare-tactic articles comparing deaths from factory farming to deaths due to AIDS.

On the other hand, I’ve read articles on the other side of the fence, such as The Omnivore’s Delusion and Omnivore vs. Vegetarianism.

Personally the jury is still out with me. It’s hard to give up something I’ve enjoyed all my life. It’s hard to give up something that’s so convenient and ubiquitous. But at the same time I am sickened by what I’ve seen by big businesses trying to squeeze every last dollar out of these animals and it makes me want to give it all up. I’ve been slowly reducing the amount of fatty red meat I consume anyway to get into better shape, so why not go a bit further and try a vegetarian lifestyle or even go vegan? I plan on doing a lot more reading and researching of both sides of the coin before deciding what to do.

Tags: fitness, food, vegan

Barefoot Running – OKC Race for the Cure 5k

Oct 11

Posted by tim in Running | Comments off

Yesterday Lori and I took part in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Oklahoma City. We both did the 5k run, and while Lori decided to walk with her mom and aunt, I wanted to run considering I regularly run 5k distances now. I also wanted to publicly run in my Vibram Five Fingers KSO’s and Injinji socks.

We got up early and arrived at the Bricktown Ballpark at 7:00am with a massive throng of people already milling about trying to keep warm. The temperature was in the low 40’s and a steady breeze made it feel a lot cooler than that. I have to admit, my toes started feeling pretty cold with the lack of additional padding from thick running socks and my clunker running shoes.

By 8:00am, the crowd had filled out to well over 15,000 people and we were lined up on Reno, ready for the gun to go off and start the race. Local radio personalities (Jack and Ron, for those who know) entertained us, followed by some Jazzercise to get everyone nice and loose.

I couldn’t help but notice that I was the only one I could see taking the minimal running approach with my Vibrams.

The race finally started and we took off. Well, I say “took off”, but that’s a bit of a lie. A lot of people failed to line up behind the correct pace markers leaving a number of runners, myself included, to have to weave around walkers in order to start running. Eventually I was able to get around people walking and got into a leisurely run.

The run itself was nice and easy. By now I’m used to running this distance in my Vibrams, and the addition of the Injinji socks really makes it a pleasant experience with no worries of blisters. I didn’t feel any soreness in my calves or feet and was able to focus on trying to keep a steady pace.

I ended up finishing the 5k in 41:33, which is about 5 minutes slower than I’m used to but understandable given how long it took to get up to speed. Here is my Runkeeper data for the run.

During the race I got several comments on my shoes. A couple of boys behind me at one point said to each other, “oh man, look at those shoes! Aren’t those weird?” and after the race a girl commented on how badly she wanted a pair like mine. And of course, there are always plenty of stares and double-takes that really make running in them worth it!

Here’s me after the race, fully pumped up and energetic:

The Vibram Five Fingers

Sep 21

Posted by tim in Running | Comments off

A friend of mine recently started wearing some really funky looking shoes with individual spots for each toe. I thought it looked pretty dumb and made sure to tell him about it on multiple occasions. He was sure to laugh at me and say, “just wait, before long you’ll be wearing a pair too.” Doubtful, I thought. I have my dignity.

When asked why he wears the shoes, he said that they’re great for running. The shoes are called the Vibram Five Fingers and they have very thin rubber soles to simulate walking barefoot but having the benefit of protection from rocks, sticks, and other nasty things on the track that would tear your feet up otherwise. They allow your foot to function like the marvel of engineering it is instead of cushioning it with layers of padding. The cushioning of the modern athletic shoe alters the way people run in such a way that people claim it actually contributes to injuries instead of preventing them.

I was skeptical about this since I’m a big fan of my Nike Air Pegasus shoes which have served me well in my running. I’ve never had any serious pain but I did notice my gait: striking hard on the heel of my foot and rolling through the outside of the foot toward the toes. I began questioning if I was limiting myself due to how I run in traditional running shoes.

Eventually I found and read the book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, a book about ultrarunners and the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico. It’s a pretty interesting and inspirational book, but also takes a look at how man evolved as runners (of a sort) and how we are engineered to run. McDougall states that foot injuries rose dramatically in the 1970’s onward, coincidentally the same time frame that the modern running shoe became big in the market.

So I decided to shuck any semblance of dignity and give the shoes a try. So I picked up a pair of the Vibram Five Finger KSOs, which stands for “keeps stuff out”. Today was my first day running in them, so I decided to go for a relatively easy 2-mile run around the Veteran’s Memorial Park in Moore. It’s a track nearly a mile long, fully paved without many hills to worry about.

As I first started my run, I immediately noticed how my gait changed: no more was I striking with the heel. Instead I was hitting with the middle of my foot, closer to the ball of the foot, going almost nearly through the middle instead of the outside of the foot. My posture felt improved, too. I was slightly forward but my back was straight. I felt lighter and faster, even though at five-foot, nine-inches and 250 pounds I’m a big dude.

I reached half a mile quicker than expected and felt great. I wasn’t winded at all and my feet weren’t dead tired like I expected them to be. That was a relief considering that with the new running stance I was working a completely different set of muscles. I would have been satisfied if I made it half a mile and had to start walking because of muscular soreness. Instead, I was having a great run.

I reached 0.9 miles and noticed something odd: I was there well before normal time and I was running fast. RunKeeper told me I was keeping a 6-minute mile page, which was unheard of for me. I smiled, laughed, and pushed myself a bit harder until I hit the 1-mile mark.

At the 1-mile mark I slowed my pace a bit, excited to see what my time would be for the first mile. I slowed because I didn’t want to push myself hard with the new shoes. I didn’t want to end up pulling or twisting anything needlessly.

Things went well until I hit the 1.5-mile mark. Then I started feeling some hot spots on my feet, the tell-tale sign of forming blisters. Shit, I thought. I guess I’ll keep running. The damage is already done. So I continued running, but slowed my pace down just a bit more to keep new blisters from forming on top of my existing blisters.

The problem was that I relied on the fact that the KSOs are nice and tight on my feet, fitting like… well, like a glove. I didn’t think I’d need any specialized socks with them, but the oversight cost me. I ended up with three blisters across my feet in key friction areas. They’ll require a bit of tending and a bit of rest and healing before I can run with these shoes again.

Overall I finished my two miles stronger than I usually do, so that speaks volumes. I ended up with an 11:12 1-mile split, which is at least 20 seconds faster than my previous record. So yes I’m still pretty slow, but the shoes helped me out considerably. I think once I get used to them and get a pair of socks like the injinji tetratsok I’ll be unstoppable.

Cheesy 80’s TV Shows

Aug 7

Posted by tim in Random | Comments off

Lori and I were talking tonight about how each generation has it’s television shows with an out of place alien, robot, or superhero who has to live in a normal suburban family environment with plenty of hijinx ensuing all over the place. That got me to thinking about all the wonderful shows of the 80’s that revolved around this basic premise.

1. Out of This World

Probably the best example of this is the television show “Out of This World” about a girl named Evie who is a half-alien growing up on Earth with a variety of powers, such as stopping time, “gleeping” items into existence, and teleportation. Evie’s powers come from her alien father, who could only talk to the family via a glowing/pulsing crystal box. The show was the epitome of a cheeseball comedy but had a ton of famous guest stars over the years.

2. Small Wonder

Thinking of “Out of This World” reminded me of another show that not many people remember when I ask about it. “Small Wonder” is a show about a little android girl named Vicki built by a presumably lonely and rather creepy guy. They have to keep Vicki’s identity secret so hilarity ensues with her acting out of place like any robot would in her situation. I remember watching this show a lot when I was younger wishing I were an android or that my sisters were. It would have explained a lot.

3. Not Quite Human

Speaking of androids, this reminds me of a book series I loved reading, “Not Quite Human” by Seth McEvoy. While not technically a TV show, it still fits in here as it had quite a similar plot to “Small Wonder”: a scientist builds a robot boy who tries to integrate into society, even attending school. I remember it being a great series when I was young. You can find the books on Amazon.com. Disney also made movies based on the books starring Alan Thicke and Jay Underwood.

4. My Secret Identity

Finally, thinking of Not Quite Human reminded me of another favorite television series: “My Secret Identity”. Who didn’t want to have a mad scientist neighbor who would inadvertently give you powers to became a superhero and fight crime?

I’m sure there are a ton more series like this I’m forgetting, but these are representative of what the 80’s had to offer for this particular genre of campy family friendly “sci-fi”.

Tags: 1980s, funny, sci fi, shows, television

Mac TTS with Ruby Update

Jun 21

Posted by tim in Programming | Comments off

So I updated my text-to-speech clock by abstracting out the text-to-speech code to its own Ruby gem: bratta-mactts on the githubs. It’s a neat little tool that allows you to write the following Ruby code (if you are on a Mac running OS X):

That will pipe out the phrase “Hello, world!” through your Mac’s speakers with the scary Deranged voice. A full list of voices is available in your Speech preferences panel, or you can view the symbolized versions used by the gem by doing something like this: puts Mac::TTS.valid_voices

In fact, you can write a simple program to preview each of the voices pretty easily:

That will loop over all the valid voices and say “My name is ______” with a one-second pause in-between phrases.

So why did I do this? Mainly because I thought of a couple more uses for automated text-to-speech ideas that can help me when I want to stay focused on work and not be distracted visually, but can afford to listen to something instead. Like hearing the current time, or listening to new entries from key RSS feeds as they come in. Yeah, it’s not for everyone, but it is a neat exercise if anything. I whipped the code together really quickly and so it’s pretty raw. But hey, there are specs and they all pass. Regardless, get the gem today and fiddle around!

sudo gem install bratta-mactts –source http://gems.github.com

Tags: mac, ruby, tts

Affecting Positive Change

Jun 7

Posted by tim in Random | 6 Comments

I’ve been running lately in an effort to be a healthier person. I’ve also been really watching my portion sizes of food to keep things a little more realistic. My soda intake is basically zero since I don’t drink regular sodas anymore and I can’t stand the taste of diet. So in effect I’ve been able to drastically change my behavior in a short period of time to achieve some pretty radical results.

I’ve lost over 40 pounds since starting back up on this routine, and now I feel it is time to take it a step further to tighten up the engine that is my body. I’ve also decided to post it here in my blog to help get me some accountability from my peers as I struggle to remain on track and reach my goals. I mean, look at the before and after pictures of my current progress:

Note that I’m not looking for a diet. I’m not looking for a “get thin quick” scheme. Those only lead to failure as I have encountered many times before in the past. If I spend my days eating nothing but energy bars or shakes and spending all my free time at the gym, I *will* get burned out and will eventually balloon up to the scary morbidly obese weight I was at my worst.

Instead I’m looking to affect positive change by changing my lifestyle to gradually become healthier. I’m doing this for health reasons and losing weight will be a great side effect of this–but not the rubric or the goal. The goal is to be happier and healthier.

So what I’m deciding to do is to cut out a few things that are my trouble spots: temptations that lead to overindulgence and hurt my health instead of helping it.

To start with, I’m cutting out 90% of my alcohol intake. For the most part, alcohol is one of the worst things you can ingest. There’s always the threat of alcoholism, liver damage, and other really bad things, but the reason I want to cut it out is due to calories and fat. And it’s damn expensive. Also, I really hate being drunk as I feel like it is a waste of time. I could be spending my time doing something productive such as programming, writing my book, or even composing music. It’s hard to do that when you’re wasted. Believe me, I’ve tried. Plus when I’m tipsy I tend to buy more stuff online so it’ll help me cut down on clutter and save me some money, too! Besides, drinking leads to playing stupid games like Wisest Wizard:

Drinking leads to nerdy games like Wisest Wizard. Do you really want this?

The only alcohol I will allow myself will be the occasional glass of wine, as studies have shown that a glass of wine a day can actually help. I don’t think I can stomach having wine that often, but the occasional glass of wine or even champagne won’t be a big deal.

The next change is going to be really, really tough for me: Fried food. I grew up in a house where fried food was served with nearly every meal (which probably explains my size now) but the amount of fat in the oil and the carbohydrates in the batter is starting to get to me. I feel giddy every time I bite into a delicious, savory morsel of sauce-covered chicken at Buffalo Wild Wings. It’s so wonderful how the texture of the meat is complemented by the crunchiness of the fried coating… nom nom nom!

But I have to seriously limit my intake of fried food if I want to be healthier. That means not so many trips to OKC’s finest secret chicken trailer, Bobo’s Chicken:

Bobo's Chicken: Not only is everything fried, it is drenched in honey!

Wow this is already hard!

Seriously, this will be harder for me than any of my other mid-year resolutions. I will be tempted at every turn to eat something fried. But 9 times out of 10 there is a grilled alternative just waiting for me to ingest, so I’ll gravitate toward that, with the help of my loved ones.

Another change will be seriously limiting red meat intake. I won’t go into all the pros and cons of red meat, but with poultry, fish, and soy being better alternatives I don’t need to have red meat and the fattiness that usually accompanies it. So instead of slabs of pork in my Thai dish, I’ll opt for chicken, fish, or tofu.

I’m already kicking tail on soda and sweets, so I just need to focus on the above things and I’ll be doing fine. With all this plus my running, it’ll just be a matter of time before I look and feel like a completely different person.

Hey look, I wrote a new song: Reaching

May 27

Posted by tim in Random | 1 Comment

Here’s a little something I whipped up tonight. I was in a weird meloncholy-funky mood and needed to channel it into music. This song was done on an M-Audio Oxygen 61 controller connected to GarageBand. It’s not high tech but I’m still learning so cut me some slack. ;p

Play Reaching:

View the track on Alonetone.com

Fun with Ruby and OS X Text-to-Speech

May 4

Posted by tim in Programming | Comments off

I was playing with the Mac OS X text-to-speech functionality the other day after watching Wall-E. Silly, I know. For those who don’t know, OS X comes with a command-line utility “say” that will speak any text you send to it, with an optional voice. So why not utilize the power of Ruby (or really any language or script) to take advantage of it?

So I wrote a small script, which you can see here:

I use Ruby to create a say method, which opens a temporary file, writes what you want said to that file, then sends that data to the say command optionally using a voice you can specify. Why not just do `cat /usr/bin/say “My text here”`? The reason for that is because I want this method to be flexible and able to handle whatever text I throw at it, and just sending it as a parameter to the say command limits what I can do without screwing up the syntax.

So then I call the say command a couple of different ways. The first call is the ding_dong method, which I use to emulate the bells of a clock, using the “Bells” voice. Then I just have it say the time from the echo_date method, which I have just telling me the current hour (although you can alter strftime to whatever you wish).

I then added this to cron so it will run the command every hour on the hour when I’m sitting at the computer:

0 8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18 * * * /Users/tim/bin/clock

I’m sure it will get annoying after a couple of days, but it is a neat little trick.

Tags: mac, os x, ruby

A Hard Decision to Make

May 3

Posted by tim in Gaming, Random | Comments off

Since late 2006 I’ve been among the millions of people who play World of Warcraft, the online game from Blizzard. It is an immersive game pitting you with and against people from all around the world in a grind to get to the highest level and obtain the coolest gear for your characters. It’s highly addictive, but I honestly think that if you haven’t played the game, you can’t fully understand how addictive it really is.

You sign in and suddenly you have access to a vast landscape. Exploring all the lands around you is dangerous and will take a long time to see all the detail put into the game. It is immense and beautiful. There are two worlds to explore consisting of several continents full of quests, cool items, massively difficult bosses to slay. To get far in the game you need to have coordinated teamwork, and that requires cooperation with people.

The most important thing you encounter in the game is the people. Everywhere you go there are other real life people doing the same thing you are doing–exploring, questing, grinding, dueling, killing other player characters, and so on. You get to know people, especially if you join a guild. You make friends and spend a lot of time with each other. I’ve even had the opportunity to meet several of those people in real life. The friendships are real and they are meaningful.

So when it comes time to hang up the hat and quit the game, it is difficult. Really difficult. Even though you know that you are done with the grind and don’t want to play anymore, you have real friendships that you feel like you are abandoning. You feel like you’re turning your back on your friends. But that’s not the case. You have to realize that if you are really friends with those you’ve met online, you’ll continue to keep in touch and be friends in spite of the game.

So it wasn’t easy for me to cancel the subscription. I stopped playing hardcore in November but signed in a few times a week, and that slowly dwindled. I haven’t signed into the game in a few months now, so it is time to officially quit. Goodbye, Azeroth.

Tags: Gaming, world of warcraft