Ultra Simple and Easy to Use Linux/UNIX Screencast

After struggling through trying to get RecordMyDesktop, Istanbul, byzanz, and a few other lesser known Linux or UNIX screen capture programs working on Debian Wheezy with sound, I just broke down and wrote my own using ffmpeg.

So, here it is: screencast.sh

This script will prompt you to click a window, then it sorts out where that window is and how big it is, and spits out a ffmpeg line that will capture that section of the screen.

If you find that copying and pasting the command into the terminal and running it makes a perfect screencast, you can remove the “echo” part of the script and it will just do the whole thing for you.

In the interactive ffmpeg window that starts scrolling by when recording starts, type “q” to stop the recording.

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I Oppose Canola In The Willamette Valley

Dear Oregonians:

The following is a letter I am sending to the hearings officer. Please feel free to use it and tailor it to your own needs. I think that a mailed letter is more likely to be paid attention to, but at the least please email your opposition to canola-rulemaking@oda.state.or.us prior to Jan 25th.

Canola Hearings Officer
Dept. of Agriculture
635 Capitol St NE
Salem, OR 97301

Dear Officer,

As a small scale urban farmer, I vehemently oppose introduction of the “canola” cultivar of rapeseed into the Willamette Valley. Not only has this cultivar rapidly gone feral and become a pestilent weed in other places where it was cultivated, it has also cross contaminated the diverse local wild rapeseed populations with patented genes, making it impossible for farmers wishing to raise non-contaminated stocks on saved seed. (“GM crop escapes into the American wild” Nature, August 2010. http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100806/full/news.2010.393.html)

I’d also remind you of the unique and economically advantageous positioning of Willamette Valley as one of the last few areas on earth that farmers can confidently produce seed without risking legal action due to cross contamination of genetics from patented genes. Preserving this characteristic and just as importantly, the image of this area as free of patented gene contamination is extremely important, as consumer demand for transgenic free organic produce continues to grow and it is difficult to impossible to grow unadulterated seed stocks in most of the rest of the world.

Personally, I hope to farm in the Willamette Valley and produce wealth for myself and by proxy the State from the unique advantages of the area. To permit a plant that is a genetically-programmed noxious weed to spread rampantly would destroy a major competitive advantage of our state’s agriculture in exchange for short term profiteering by a handful of farmers who could just as easily and likely more profitably grow something else.

Sincerely,

Matthew Steven

—-
Note: Those who can should attend the public hearing on Jan. 23rd. See this site for details.

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Downshifting

The last few months have been rather hectic, but inspiring. See my drop-out post for more on that.

This site is getting renovated to remove the law stuff and go back to the nerd stuff that was here before.

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My 1L Drop-out Experience

I’m kicking myself out of law school, in my first year, a few weeks before those trepidatious first exams.

My health has deteriorated to a state that is potentially life threatening, my relationships with the people who matter most in life are getting strained, and I have no energy to be a good father to my son. But before I get into the meat of that story, I would like to highlight the truly excellent things about my law school experience. Because I imagine a few prospective law students may read this.

First off, I genuinely felt like I enjoyed every day of class. I loved being a part of a group all of whom were engaged in a common struggle. My classmates were nothing like you read about in the horror stories; in fact, every one of them with whom I interacted impressed me to no end with their wit and good spirit. I also started saying “whom” a lot, which I could tell impressed them back. Personally, I felt great as I found myself gaining skill with reading cases, writing like a lawyer, and extra-curricular activities. I felt my brain getting more limber and growing every day, and I liked the educational aspect of it far more than any other experience of that sort I’ve ever had in my life.

There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was capable of finishing law school with a strong network of great friends, good class rank and ample opportunities. Until about a month before finals.

Students all “freak out” about final exams. Throughout the semester, there are no breaks, such as for homework or exams where you can gauge how you are doing. Your entire grade in a typical 1L (1st year law) class rests on one single exam. That’s quite a lot of pressure, but I had overcome such pressure in the past. I graduated magna cum laude from my undergrad university. I also overcame the anxiety to score quite well on the LSAT and gain a generous scholarship to a well respected school.

When I had the typical 1L freak out, I got all my outlines caught up, started reading and writing from sample exams and model answers I found online, consulting with professors and faculty to improve my exam taking skills, and meeting other students for study and reflection. I was, as usual, a diligent, disciplined, competent student. But there was still a ticking time bomb.

Three weeks before finals, I guess I “relaxed” enough to tune in to what my body had been trying to tell me for some time. I was sleeping 12 hours a night and still wanting more. I was often prone to dizzy spells. At first, I blamed the home environment which involved a two-year-old who refused to stay asleep at night and was otherwise quite physically demanding in the (very enjoyable) hour or two I got to spend with him each day. I couldn’t sleep, but I’d gotten through that before. I hadn’t slept well since the little guy was born, in fact. It wasn’t usually an issue.

The real danger was revealed during a trip to the pharmacy. While waiting for a prescription to be filled, I tried out the automatic blood pressure machine. It read something in the ballpark of 173/90, registering just under the “hypertension” red line. I figured I’d had a long day, and it would get better, but a few weeks later at a vaccination appointment I asked my son’s doctor to check my pressure and it was by then well into the danger zone. The look on her face was enough to send me into a bit of a panic. She scheduled me in as quickly as she could, and what followed was a weekend of yoga, meditation, and relaxing.

I got my blood pressure down to a level approaching safe. I tried an hour of working a practice exam, only to find that my pressure had shot up into the danger zone again as a consequence. I knew that I always got excited by the material, but the impact of it on my health was unsettling. I gave up for the weekend and went back to relaxing, in hopes that the doctor could give me drugs that would put the smack down on my system and let me plow through regardless of what my body wanted. I notified the officials at school about what was going on, and friends there who heard about me sent me class notes and were very helpful. Many teachers sent encouraging emails and pod-casts of the classes. Again, this is a great law school I’m talking about.

Monday came around, and a good friend gave me a ride to the doctor’s office. I was put on the EKG which said my heart rate was way out of hand even after the weekend of R&R. My blood pressure was better, though still not good. I was prescribed some drugs, I gave some blood for tests, and went home. The drug got my heart rate down within a half day or so, and prevented it from spiking with every wave of panic I was now feeling off and on. My blood pressure improved a little, but between the pressure of every day of lost study that was hanging over my head and the very realistic terror about the possibility of severe, maybe deadly consequences to my health probably held it back.

By Tuesday night, I felt well enough to consider going to class, and told a few of my classmates so. Shortly thereafter, I started really feeling a serious anxiety which kept me up half the night. My blood pressure went up, though the drug kept my pulse in check. I also had several more “law-mares.” This, on top of some surprisingly unpleasant side-effects of the drugs that will make me want to get off them as soon as possible, was the nail in the coffin of my law career. I simply refuse to live like this if there’s any reasonable alternative.

So, what do I mean by a law-mare? It’s something I’ve been having since the first nights after reading tons of cases. It’s a dream that starts out fairly ordinary, and then devolves into legal analysis. For example, I’m driving a car in my dream on a nice day. From that premise, my mind would start branching into exploration of potential horrors. Such as a child running out in front of me before I had time to stop. That’s bad enough, but when the mind skips the usual nightmare scenario of blood and fear and goes straight into an analysis of the potential tort consequences for all possible parties involved, that’s even worse. Something deep within me resists reacting to a tragedy by immediately analyzing who is the best candidate to sue or what the best way to get out of being sued is. I felt really guilty when I would wake up and realize what my mind was doing. And usually sweaty and freaked out.

That’s what much of my law school training was about- when they say they are going to change the way you think, they are not kidding. Instead of thinking “oh my god, what can I do to help?” the dreams had me thinking, “Can I blame this on someone else?” Or, from a plaintiff’s perspective, who has “deep pockets” so we aren’t suing someone who we’ll never get money out of (“judgment proof”). What claims can be pursued with “straight-faced arguments.” What are the counterarguments within the factual scenario that will be pursued by my opponents. What’s the best strategy for filing, since we can’t get more than “one bite of the apple.”

If all was well, I think that I should find these dreams reassuring; my mind was learning what it needed in order to be a good lawyer as it went through the nightly reprocessing of what I picked up during the day.

At a purely intellectual level, these kinds of exercises are invigorating and fun. But instead I wake up in a sweat, mind and heart racing. This, along with the ever increasing blood pressure and heart rate, tells me that I must have taken a wrong turn by going ahead with entering law and law school. Deep down, apparently I really don’t want to think like that. I don’t know. I still think I would be an incredible lawyer if I had been able to get my balance worked out right.

More exercise, or maybe I’d need to take some heavy sedatives to get through it. But it’s over, there’s no easy way back to ordinary blood pressure, a decent quality of life, and peace of mind for me at this point.

So how can this story help a potential law school candidate better prepare?

My school offered an introductory two week course intended to prepare students for the trial to come, which I eagerly pursued and got into. I was told countless times to keep up my exercise, to set aside one day a week for non-law activities, and to eat well. I think that in practice I did alright on all of these suggestions, but I seriously underestimated the need for increasing my own already decent physical fitness level. The best coping method for the unprecedented intellectual stress is (surprise!) unprecedented physical stress from exercise.

But I’m now 36 years old freshly diagnosed with malignant hypertension. Probably not the moment to go hog wild on the treadmill, though I regret not having built up to it last summer. I had no idea what law school would do to me, and neither do you. But if you’re young, smarter than me, or lucky, you probably will get through it without unbearable suffering.

So here’s the advice. If you’re not an “immortal” 20-something when you start law, and you’re prone to being a bit high strung about intellectual activities you probably should get yourself into a medium to high intensity aerobic program that works you into far better shape than you ordinarily need to be before you start, and stick with it.

Also, know yourself. I felt I knew myself pretty well, but there was a sort of time bomb ticking throughout this whole experience. I couldn’t sense it, but maybe if I’d paid closer attention to myself I would have realized my sleep was not normal, or something else wasn’t right. So I realize that that’s not terribly helpful, but I do mean that in many ways- the unexamined life isn’t worth living, and so on.

But don’t fret on my behalf: my story has a happy ending. I have a fully intact and in-demand skill set, and a great career to fall back on. I’m lucky that I figured the blood pressure thing out before it killed me. I’m also lucky this didn’t show up later in law school after I’d spent an even greater sum toward a career of which the pressure could set off a similar catastrophe.

I have my family, and a good life. That’s enough. I wanted to be a superhero, but I realize that I am not going to pull that off. I’m going to be a good dad and husband. I’m going to branch out into new things that hold my interest in my old career so I don’t let myself get stagnated like I was. I’m going to build non-profits that help people, invent new ways to grow good food, give blood more often, play my guitar for old folks in nursing homes. Good stuff like that that helps people and makes me feel like I deserve my spot on this ride.

That said, I’m never going to regret going to law school. It was “one L of a ride” as one author put it. I learned massive amounts about the society I live in along with the ins and outs of entanglements with the legal system. All information I will hopefully never have to use, but if I do get tangled up in the godforsaken machine, I’ll at least have a fighting chance!

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A Five Gallon Batch of Raspberry Kombucha for Under $20

Finished Product

Kombucha is a fermented sweet tea drink. It’s a little sour, a little sweet, and usually effervescent. It is a probiotic beverage, which means it contains lots of living microorganisms which are really good for your digestion and overall health. It also costs quite a bit if you buy it at the store, and you can save a fortune by brewing your own. Following my directions, you can very affordably brew around 40 bottles of Kombucha for around 10% of the cost of store-bought. And you’ll know exactly what is in it!

The biggest challenge will probably be finding your mother. I picked up my Kombucha “mother” for around $10 at a local homebrew shop. This biofilm is sometimes referred to as a “mushroom” out of tradition, but it is not actually a mushroom by any definition. It’s actually a “symbiotic culture of yeast and bacteria,” or SCOBY for short. It’s a big, slippery noodle like thing that will magically turn your sweet tea into Kombucha over the course of several weeks. You can order them online, and sometimes find them in homebrew shops, as I did.

Equipment

Kombucha Mother At Work

To make Kombucha, you’ll need some pretty basic kitchen equipment: a pot that can boil a gallon or so of water, a strainer that can strain out your tea if you’re using loose tea, and a 5 gallon container to hold your tea in. For the container, I highly recommend spending $30 or so for a 5 gallon glass carboy with stopper and airlock.And a carboy cleaning brush and funnel, if you go this route.

You can also use a food grade bucket with an airlock, such as a homebrew beer/wine bucket which will be cheaper, but there is some controversy about whether fermenting in such a vessel can introduce undesirable chemicals into the brew. Kombucha will have a PH of around 4 when it’s done, which is quite acid. If you’re going to worry about it, go with the glass carboy- it is completely inert.

Oh, and don’t use one of those blue drinking water bottles you can pick up for $10 or less. They contain antimicrobial compounds in the plastic which will inhibit and possibly kill your mother. Be nice to your mother, and she will look after you too.

5 Gallon Raspberry Kombucha Recipe

  • 4 cups of evaporated cane juice, organic. You can replace this with other sweetners, but avoid using honey as it has antibacterial properties.
  • 1 kombucha mother (bigger ones are marginally better than smaller ones)
  • 4 Tbs loose Darjeeling tea (any tea works, as long as it doesn’t have oils- such as Bergamot in Earl Gray)
  • About 5 gallons of spring water
  • About one pint (~1lb) of raspberries. If you use fresh ones, like I did, rinse them off and freeze them first. The flavor will permeate the drink much more easily after it’s been frozen, and it will kill off the more fragile organisms that might be hitching a ride.
  • Something to put the finished product in: 40 used but very clean 16oz Kombucha bottles with screw-on lids, or ten half-gallon mason jars are inexpensive choices.

Brewing

I began by brewing the tea with about one gallon of water. Bring the water to a boil, shut off the heat, and add the tea just as the water stops bubbling. This is the “Douglas Adams” English method of making tea- and gets the most out of your leaves. If you make tea with rolling boil water, it’s foul, and if you make it with cooler water, too few of the rich flavor compounds are released and you have a wet cardboard drink instead.

Pour off a little bit of the tea into a separate cup and see if it tastes alright. It should just taste like very strong tea. If it doesn’t- add more tea to the main batch, steep, and repeat. But do not even think about tossing what’s left in the cup after your taste back into the rest of the tea- your mouth is covered in bacteria which could easily turn your batch into a funk fest of nastiness. If you want the best outcome, be extremely cautious about sanitation.

Put three gallons of cool water into the fermentation vessel, followed by the one gallon of hot tea.

You’ll have one last gallon of water to work with now, and it’s this final gallon that goes into your pot. Bring it to a boil, and then slowly stir in all the sugar. It will all dissolve slowly, and you should continuously stir it as you boil your sugar/water mix for 10 minutes. This ensures that there are no surviving microbial hitchhikers from your sweetener which could spoil the batch.

Carefully pour that boiling sugar water into your four gallons of tea and water in the fermentation container. If your container is glass, use a funnel and avoid letting the hot liquid contact the glass; it should go straight into the tea/water mix instead. If you were careful with your measurements, there should still be some space left in the fermenter for more liquid. Don’t top it up with water, because we have to introduce it to our mother now.

But first, wait for the temperature to come down. If the vessel is warm to the touch, it’s too warm. Once it seems about the same as room temperature, you can add your mother and starter tea*. Don’t kill your mother by scalding her to death- be patient with her.

Fermentation

You’ll note that we haven’t added the fruit. Don’t worry, we’re not going to do that for weeks. Put it in the freezer!

At this point you want to take measures to prevent any outside air (bugs, dust, mold spores, etc) from getting into your fermentation vessel. The cork and airlock approach is one of the easiest ways, but you can also use a rubber band and (very clean) lint-free cloth in a pinch. Just don’t let it get wet.

Sampling a Kombucha

Now, your mother has to ask you to be patient once again, because making five gallons of Kombucha takes time. In my case, I found that it required a month to make a moderately zingy drink. Six weeks would have probably made one that was even tastier. It is possible that my mother was weak, and yours may work faster, so I suggest sampling it every few weeks in a sanitary way. The best method I found was to use a clean, new drinking straw, dip it in, put your finger on the top to seal it off, and then lift out the tea and drop it in a cup, or your mouth if you don’t plan to have a second dip. If it still tastes very sweet, it’s not ready.

Bottling

Once it tastes sufficiently sour, you are ready to bottle it. In my case, I kegged it, with the raspberries all together in a tied-off brand new porous polyester bag. I imagine a brand new nylon stocking could work just as well. The keg approach, however, is probably more of an investment than you are interested in for your first batch of Kombucha!

So I will assume you’re going to use bottles or jars. The trick is to blend the fruit or fruits, and then mix it all evenly into the finished Kombucha. But you don’t want your mother to mix with the fruits. Either find a sanitary way to fish her out first, or dump the batch into a separate container or bucket, keeping the mother behind with a little leftover unflavored Kombucha which will be the starter tea for next time. A jar in the fridge is a good place for her and her starter tea to hang out for now.

Mix your blended fruits into the motherless Kombucha evenly. With raspberries, the color will change to a nice rose. You can use a funnel, siphon tube, or if you’re really getting creative, a clean measuring cup with a fluted edge to pour it into the bottles.Seal them up, but don’t neglect to read the next section for your own safety.

Getting Bubbles

The new sugars from the fruits combined with the suspended SCOBY critters will cause the fermentation to kick off a second time in the bottles. This will produce a little CO2 as a side effect, which will be trapped in the bottles, and as a result, forced into the liquid. This is how carbonation happens- and you’ll have a fizzy drink after it’s sat on the shelf doing its secondary fermentation for a few weeks.

But this can also get out of hand, particularly if you have a particularly sweet fruit addition. Sweeter fruits should be used more sparingly, and less sweet fruits can be used in a higher proportion. Just remember, if you haven’t done the calculations for appropriate fermentable sugars to achieve a correct pressurization, you have a genuine risk of having your bottles explode on the shelf. Doing the math is difficult without special equipment to measure the sugar content of your fruit. So I just check them every few days, crack the cap to hear how much of a hiss it lets off, and re-seal. This is called “burping the bottles” and I would strongly recommend you do it to every bottle on the shelf at least every other day until you decide that they’re bubbly enough and refrigerate them.

The same goes for jars. Just let off the pressure regularly.

Conclusion

You can repeat the recipe routinely, and probably ought to do so at least every 3 months to keep your mother from starving to death in the fridge. If you are going to keep her on ice for awhile, you should feed her a teaspoon sugar once a month, as she is still alive in the fridge, albeit living life in the slow lane. Don’t forget to “burp” her jar a week or so after you feed her. But brewing is both fun and saves a lot of money for the Kombucha enthusiast, so I suspect you’ll keep your mother working and growing for many years to come.

Finally, don’t forget to share your mother with your friends. Sure, she can’t bake them cookies, but she can sure whip up a mean bottle of ‘bucha.

 

* Hey, wait- Matt, you didn’t mention starter tea! Sorry- the starter tea is what your mother was swimming in when you got her. If she didn’t come in a jar with starter tea, don’t worry about it, she will most likely still be alright.

 

 

Posted in Cooking and Brewing | 1 Comment