Ryan Martinsen's Blog

Keeping your computer safe from baddies

2012-03-17T22:00:00Z

Yes, I'm a huge nerd. No, I don't keep the poster there.

Thanks, @drfindley, for the Dalek and Cyberman action figures.

How to stay sane at a startup

2012-03-10T20:22:00Z

hahahahahaahahahahaha

Books I read in 2011

2012-03-09T03:58:00Z

I set a goal to read 40 books in 2011 and ended up reading 41. My goal for 2012 is 52 books, which I'm already behind on.

Page count: 19,645 pages. That's 138 more pages per book than in 2010.

I also read more books I liked than in 2010.

2010:

2011:

Of course, it could be that I got worse at accurately rating books, but I doubt it. I did read all of Harry Potter and a lot of Orson Scott Card, after all.

The worst book, book 10 of the Wheel of Time, only got 1 star because Goodreads doesn't let you give negative ratings. (You should be my friend on Goodreads.)

Anyway, here's the actual list in the order I read them in:

Winter's Heart (Wheel of Time, #9), by Robert Jordan Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1), by J.K. Rowling
Crossroads of Twilight (Wheel of Time, #10), by Robert Jordan
Knife of Dreams (Wheel of Time, #11), by Robert Jordan
The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time, #12), by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time, #13), by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2), by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3), by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4), by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5), by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter, #6), by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7), by J.K. Rowling
Men at Arms (Discworld, #15), by Terry Pratchett
The Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicle, #1), by Patrick Rothfuss
The Wise Man's Fear (Kingkiller Chronicle, #2), by Patrick Rothfuss
New Spring (Wheel of Time, prequel), by Robert Jordan
Do the Work, by Steven Pressfield
Poke the Box, by Seth Godin
A War of Gifts (Ender's Saga, #5), by Orson Scott Card
Ender in Exile (Ender's Saga, #6), by Orson Scott Card
The Lost Gate (Mither Mages, #1), by Orson Scott Card
Red Prophet (Tales of Alvin Maker, #2), by Orson Scott Card
Pathfinder (Serpent World, #1), by Orson Scott Card
Bonds That Make Us Free, by C. Terry Warner
A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1), by George R.R. Martin
The Sum of All Men (Runelords #1), by David Farland
Soul Music (Discworld, #16), by Terry Pratchett
Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli
The Wednesday Wars, by Gary D. Schmidt
Okay for Now, by Gary D. Schmidt
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
Interesting Times (Discworld, #17), by Terry Pratchett
Brotherhood of the Wolf (Runelords, #2), by David Farland
Maskerade (Discworld, #18), by Terry Pratchett
Feet of Clay (Discworld, #19), by Terry Pratchett
Jingo (Discworld, #21), by Terry Pratchett
The Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson
Wizardborn (Runelords, #3), by David Farland
Moving Pictures (Discworld, #10), by Terry Pratchett
The Book of Three (The Prydain Chronicles, Book 1), by Lloyd Alexander
Hogfather (Discworld, #20), by Terry Pratchett

Books I read in 2010

2012-03-08T17:03:00Z

I never posted the books I read in 2010. So here they are.

Page count (goodreads): 14,504 pages (average of 392 pages per book).

Of course, I listened to the majority of these books so a page count isn't entirely accurate.

Equal Rites (Discworld, #3), by Terry Pratchett
The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1), by Suzanne Collins
Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Pastwatch, by Orson Scott Card
Eric (Discworld, #9), by Terry Pratchett
Rework, by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
The Great Hunt (Wheel of Time, #2), by Robert Jordan
The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2), by J.R.R. Tolkien
Small Gods (Discworld, #13), by Terry Pratchett
Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2), by Suzanne Collins
Reaper Man (Discworld, #11), by Terry Pratchett
Authentic Happiness, by Martin E.P. Seligman
Dauntless (The Lost Fleet, #1), by Jack Campbell
Dune Messiah (Dune Chronicles, #2), by Frank Herbert
Linchpin, by Seth Godin
Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson
Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson
Making Ideas Happen, by Scott Belsky
Witches Abroad (Discworld, #12), by Terry Pratchett
Illusions, by Richard Bach
The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman
The Dragon Reborn (Wheel of Time, #3), by Robert Jordan
Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3), by Suzanne Collins
The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive, #1), by Brandon Sanderson
The Shadow Rising (Wheel of Time, #4), by Robert Jordan
The Cuckoo's Egg, by Clifford Stoll
Behind Every Good Man, by John Bytheway
The Peacegiver, by James L. Ferrell
Fearless (The Lost Fleet, #2), by Jack Campbell
City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2), by Cassandra Clare
Lords and Ladies (Discworld, #14), by Terry Pratchett
The Fires of Heaven (Wheel of Time, #5), by Robert Jordan
Lord of Chaos (Wheel of Time, #6), by Robert Jordan
A Crown of Swords (Wheel of Time, #7), by Robert Jordan
The Path of Daggers (Wheel of Time, #8), by Robert Jordan
Seventh Son (Tales of Alvin Maker, #1), by Orson Scott Card

The Problem with Haircuts

2012-03-07T01:30:48Z

I've had maybe 3 haircuts in my entire life (I'll be 30 this month) that didn't make me want to wear hats until it grew back out. Yes, most end up being okay after 2-4 weeks, but some were terrible until the next haircut adventure (when it'd usually just turn into some new disaster).

I've long thought that I'm just bad at telling barbers / hair stylists / people who cut hair how I want my hair. I still think that's true, but today's experience has shed additional light on the situation.

My hair was really long. I hadn't gotten it cut in almost 6 months. I figured I could lose 2 full inches of hair and still have enough left for a pretty good mop on my head. I thought wrong... or did I?

See if you can spot the problem:

Haircut person cuts off 2 inches of hair.
Haircut person proceeds to trim and make sure everything is even.
Repeat step 2 until all sides are even.

I've long thought that step three was the real issue here. I'd watch my hair go from unsightly mess to approximately what I want, and then the haircut person would continue chopping more off. I never stopped them because I figured if it's uneven, it needs fixing. But it just gets shorter and shorter and shorter as they trim one side, then the other, then the other again because they cut too much off the other side, then the other again, then the other again, and on and on until they're cutting hair that hasn't grown yet.

No, the real problem is step one. If the final result should be start value minus two inches, then cutting off two inches at the beginning is a bad, bad idea. More is going to come off in the process of evening everything out, thus making the end result about 1 inch shorter than it should be.

I should add that the woman I've had cut my hair the last several times has done a far better job than all those that came before. But I still don't get why this phenomenon happens. Why chop off the full 2 inches at the beginning if that's what the customer says they want cut off? Maybe they don't anticipate how apparently difficult it is to make my hair even? Whatever the reason, next time I'm going to tell her to cut off half of what I think it should be.

Cities I visited in 2011

2012-01-02T22:30:00Z

These are the cities I spent one or more nights in during 2011:

Adirondak Loj Wilderness Campground (okay, it's not a city, but I spent a night there)
Barcelona, Spain
Berlin, Germany
Corolla, North Carolina
Disney Cruise, Eastern Caribbean (yeah, I'm totally counting this as a city)
Disney World, Florida
Düsseldorf, Germany
Eagle Mountain, Utah
Florence, Italy
Interlaken, Switzerland
Kaysville, Utah
Los Angeles, California
Madrid, Spain
Martinsburg, West Virginia
Milan, Italy
New York, New York
Palo Alto, California
Paris, France
Riverton, Utah
Rome, Italy
Washington, D.C.

Notable places I visited, but didn't spend the night:

Boston, Massachusetts
Venice, Italy

Where did you go?

An all new blog

2011-07-28T19:45:00Z

It's been a really long time since I last made major changes to my website. It's also been a long time since I posted here regularly. One of those two things just changed. Hint: the former. I make no promises regarding my post frequency. That never ends well.

So if you've never been to my site before, the design you see here is drastically different from what it used to be. I've wanted a change for a long time, but every time I tried I would get caught up in the design. I tried too hard to do something fancy, but in the end I went for the minimalist approach you see here. I came up with it, I wrote it. It's simple and I'm happy.

I started this blog in September 2004. That's 6 years, 10 months, and 25 days on Wordpress. Today is day 1 (for those who struggle with math) on nanoc. No, there's nothing horribly wrong with Wordpress. I just don't like updating it all the time. Also, I want to write posts in Vim or TextEdit or whatever I feel like. I wanted version control for my posts and pages. I wanted to learn something new. I like static content when there's no real reason to have dynamic content (i.e., Wordpress runs off a database and builds pages everytime you load them, whereas nanoc builds your site only when you tell it to). Yes, you can cache with Wordpress. I just like this solution better.

Do I recommend nanoc to others? Only if you're a nerd. And even then, it's not for everyone.

Sources of inspiration: BenCrowder.net, justin hileman dot info, nvie.com, and Steve Losh.

What about comments? They're coming. I've got something of a crazy plan for them which I'm pretty excited about. Stay tuned or whatever.

Note: I'm still working out a few bugs here and there. Let me know if you find anything odd.

Coming soon

2011-07-05T14:27:17Z

My first forays into web development as a job were centered around static content generation for e-commerce sites. I thought then and have ever since that websites, especially e-commerce ones, should stop this progression to more and more dynamic content and use static content wherever possible. So the fairly recent obsession with bloggers turning to "baked" website solutions has made me quite happy on the inside. You know, all warm and fuzzy. Now only if e-commerce platforms would head in the same direction.

So why am I still on Wordpress? And why am I still using this old theme? For one, I've been on an extended I'm-going-to-do-absolutely-nothing vacation for a little over two months now. Yes, the first few weeks of it were in NYC, but the following almost 2 months have been in LA, San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Interlaken, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, and now the Outer Banks in North Carolina. I'm over a month behind on uploading photos. In addition to just being gone, I was quite burned out. I needed a break and had been planning on taking this trip for over a year.

It's been quite fascinating, as an observer of myself, to see and feel the difference this trip has made in my desire to build things. Before this trip I hadn't had a new idea for something to build in years. Now, I'm bouncing around 7 or 8 serious ideas. I feel like I've found my soul again.

Anyway. This will soon be a nanoc-powered blog. I can't wait to get rid of Wordpress.

Update: I've ported ryanm.info and ryanware.com to nanoc. I'm getting really close on this blog.

Ron Paul: Lying is not Patriotic

2011-02-24T22:30:43Z

Ron Paul is the only* politician I've heard speak any sense regarding the Wikileaks Secret US Embassy Cables.

* Granted, I haven't listened to many. Political rhetoric drives me mad. Thankfully, Ron Paul isn't just touting a party line in order to get votes.

Growing is Forever (video)

2011-02-04T00:15:14Z

This is beautiful.

Growing is Forever from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.