VMWare I hate you

***UPDATE***

Chris made a very reasonable suggestion to use virtual box instead of VMware.  This actually would have been my preference originally since its dead simple to set up.  Unfortunately after doing some reading online it appears that in the area of disk performance VMware stomps on virtual box.  Since the application for this particular situation is web servers, this is less than ideal.

Thanks for the suggestion though, if I was using this for desktop applications I would completely agree and I would recommend virtual box to anyone who is interested for desktop use. Virtual box for those interested also has the benifit of offering an OSS version.

************

Okay, so I don’t really hate VMware in fact its been pretty handy in the past. The problem is that the really cater to Redhat based distros and bite their thumb at debian based distros. They release packages in rpm’s which have scripts in them and they don’t want to run in alien. This means that I really can’t use the RPM’s on ubuntu without a great deal of pain.

Apparently other people have been kind enough in the past to create packages for ubuntu but the last mention of said packages I can find (although the packages themselves don’t seem to exist) on the web is for fiesty fawn. This again seems to leave me out in the cold. I’ve also found some tarballs out there that have everything you need for the modules, etc. Unfortunately they are all version 1.0.5 and I have already installed (and borked) 1.0.6 which apparently leaves remnants even after you uninstall it.

Since we are probably going to run the server on a CentOS (redhat based) server, it shouldn’t be a problem. However I really need to have this virtual machine up and running on my machine as well, for creating servers, troubleshooting, etc. I’ve basically spent the last few hours going through forums and fighting with this infuriating install and I’m pretty much calling it for the day. I will resign myself to shake my fists at the sky and fight this battle another day.

Maybe after I walk away from it and come back the problem will magically come to me, or I’ll just have better luck with someones instructions (that don’t contain broken links or refer to a year old distro)… just walk away…

grumble grumble

btw, if I happen to have attracted the attention of a more geeky reader that thinks they may have a solution to this frustrating issue for me please feel fee to send me an email or post a comment. Have a great holiday weekend everyone.

I love synergy

At work I have a Mac laptop and a linux desktop. Sometimes I wind up wanting to do things on the mac laptop but the vast majority of the time I use my linux machine. The problem is I can’t stand using the stupid mouse on the mac laptop and I’d rather use a full sized keyboard. I could always have two sets of mice and keyboards on my desk, but really who has the space for such extravagances.

The solution I have is called synergy, I’ve used it before but never on a mac. Basically what synergy does is make a network connection between your machines and then shares your mouse and keyboard. One of the machines acts as a server (In my case my linux box, but more on that later) and the other is a client. Whichever machine you designate as the server is the machine that has the shared mouse and keyboard.

The only problem with the solution is that synergy does nothing to encrypt your traffic. That’s really bad news if you are typing passwords and such. The solution is pretty simple (as long as you can set up an openssh server on the box), basically you port forward a port on your machine to a port on the server machine using ssh. This allows you to make the connection over an ssh pipe. I know it sounds scary but if you know how to set up an ssh server then its really just one command. The only thing to note is that if you don’t use the default port (which you shouldn’t) then you have to specify the port with the -p flag when you run the ssh command synergy gives you.

At some point I may set up a little bash script to automate the process but its really just two commands on my mac so I haven’t bothered yet… So now I have one big happy desktop made up of linux and mac… I’m so happy.

Fail blog gets it right

Every once and a while I go and check out fail blog because they have some humorous pictures.  I showed it to Lisa today and we both had a good laugh about the first entry for today.  Since its related to veganism I thought I would share it with all of you.

So to all you omni’s go enjoy your menstrual by-products from a tortured chicken’s vagina…

mmmm babies.

Finally a real employee

My information finally went through human resources yesterday so I was able to get my RIN.  Even though I’ve been working at RPI for a week, I haven’t had my RIN that whole time.  In order for most departments at RPI to process new employees they need you RIN, its basically like a SSN for RPI employees.

Now that I have the RIN I was able to go down to the student union and get my Rensselear ID, sign up for my email and setup my voicemail.  I still have to wait a few days to get my keys and security access to the building… but hey at least I have an email and ID that says I’m staff.  Apparently someone else with the last name olsen and a first name that begins with m already worked/went to school at RPI; so my rcs is olsenm2 instead of olsenm

I’m slowly learning everyones names and gradually beginning to get a feel for what everyone does.  Each day I feel a little less awkward about my job, less like the new guy.  It helps that everyone I work with is really cool.  The wrong group of co-workers could really make this job be very overwhelming, so I count myself very lucky.

A couple days ago we had a meeting to go over the opening weekend.  The curators all talked about the different events going on over the course of the weekend, and Johannes talked about more about the overall goals of EMPAC.  If I had any doubts about coming over to EMPAC, they were completely alleviated with this meeting.  I’m very excited about this opening weekend and I can’t wait to see and hear everything in October, its going to be crazy.

Hope to see some of you there.

The Vegans 100

Well I saw Hannah’s call to post our own vegan 100 and have posted my list below. As per her instructions I am bolding any items I’ve eaten and crossing out any items that I have no interest in eating. A couple of notes though, some of the items below I ate as a non-vegan and have not eaten since, also some items I have eaten I have little to no interest in eating again. Enjoy my list for what its worth.

1. Natto
2. Green Smoothie
3. Tofu Scramble
4. Haggis
5. Mangosteen
6. Creme brulee
7. Fondue
8. Marmite/Vegemite
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Nachos
12. Authentic soba noodles
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Taco from a street cart
16. Boba Tea
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Gyoza
20. Vanilla ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Ceviche
24. Rice and beans
25. Knish
26. Raw scotch bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Caviar
29. Baklava
30. Pate
31. Wasabi peas
32. Chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Mango lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Mulled cider
37. Scones with buttery spread and jam
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Fast food french fries
41. Raw Brownies
42. Fresh Garbanzo Beans
43. Dahl
44. Homemade Soymilk
45. Wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Stroopwafle
47. Samosas
48. Vegetable Sushi
49. Glazed doughnut
50. Seaweed
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Tofurkey
54. Sheese
55. Cotton candy
56. Gnocchi
57. Piña colada
58. Birch beer
59. Scrapple
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Soy curls
63. Chickpea cutlets
64. Curry
65. Durian
66. Homemade Sausages
67. Churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake
68. Smoked tofu
69. Fried plantain
70. Mochi
71. Gazpacho
72. Warm chocolate chip cookies
73. Absinthe
74. Corn on the cob
75. Whipped cream, straight from the can
76. Pomegranate
77. Fauxstess Cupcake
78. Mashed potatoes with gravy
79. Jerky
80. Croissants
81. French onion soup
82. Savory crepes
83. Tings
84. A meal at Candle 79
85. Moussaka
86. Sprouted grains or seeds
87. Macaroni and “cheese”
88. Flowers
89. Matzoh ball soup
90. White chocolate
91. Seitan
92. Kimchi
93. Butterscotch chips
94. Yellow watermelon
95. Chili with chocolate
96. Bagel and Tofutti
97. Potato milk
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Raw cookie dough

How is work going?

I’ve had a bunch of people ask me how my new job is going. Its really a tough one to answer to be perfectly honest. In all reality I’ve only been here for a few days and I probably won’t really know what my job is like for a while. Probably months before I really start to get a “feel” for my job. I don’t even have my RPI email, or keys to the building yet.

So far though I can say that I sit at a linux machine as my primary machine, I have a mac laptop for my own use, my boss strongly dislikes Microsoft and I get to wear jeans and a t-shirt. I think its likely going to be a fun job and the people I work with seem to be very laid back. The job itself seems like its going to be pretty crazy sometimes but the people that work here do the best they can to make it a relaxing atmosphere.

There are a lot of projects coming up that I may wind up getting involved in but its difficult to say what at this point. Everyone’s priority is to make sure we hit our opening date, so I’m pretty much here to take care of whatever is needed for the next month or so. I am very excited about the projects it sounds like I will work on soon though.

When I have something that is actually interesting to post about my job I will… so far so good.

Leaving albany, a very vegan goodbye

Today was my last day at my job at University at Albany. We had a party, like we usually do when someone leaves.  Generally everyone meets in the conference room and everyone (except me and someone at my job with celiacs) eats pizza, cake, coldcuts or some other non-vegan food.  I always enjoy them but they are filled with questions “Aren’t you going to eat anything?”, “Can you eat the salad?”, etc.

For all the vegans out there, I’m sure all of you have been to a party where there was nothing to eat.  It can be an incredibly frustrating experience and it is only worse if the party is “for you” when there is nothing to eat.  I’ve kind of gotten used to it and I generally just plan to bring my own food whenever I’m going to a party or eat before.  Its not ideal but it allows me to be social and still eat.

You can imagine how excited I was when my job asked what they could get for me to eat for my going away party.  Its honestly a little bit difficult for a lot of vegans to be able to come up with something easy for other people to do that is vegan for a party.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying being vegan is difficult.  However there are not a lot of vegan restaurants and having other people make vegan food takes a certain amount of trust.  Thankfully for me there is a pizza place in the area that is owned by a vegan.  So, I asked my job if they would get me a small vegan pizza from Little Anthony’s and everyone else could eat omni pizza.

I was planning on bringing some cupcakes and cookies to the party but, when lisa heard, she wanted to make the baked goods.  Personally that was fine with me since I am not generally a fan of baking, although I do enjoy eating the baked goods.  I enjoy cooking but baking always felt like a chemistry experiment.  When I’m doing the baking (except breads) its usually an experiment gone wrong.  As always I loved the peanut butter cookies, but the strawberry cupcakes were a tasty surprise also.

On top of the fact that I could eat a nice vegan pizza (and not be a freak at my own party) eveyone loved Lisa’s cookies and cupcakes.  I don’t think everyone at my old job can really understand just how cool that was.  Its funny how sometimes something so simple can make you so happy.

Fun filled weekend

Lisa and I decided to take my friend Chris to the woodstock farm animal sanctuary this weekend.  Chris is an omni but he generally has a pretty open mind.  Last time we went to the farm animal sanctuary with my father it was pretty much the experience I would expect when you went to a large petting zoo.  There were a lot of cute animals wondering around and you got to pet them… however not a lot in the way of animal rights talk.

When we arrived this time there was already a very large group at the animal sanctuary.  Apparently the group had made plans to come to the sanctuary in advance because it seemed that they were expecting them.  This time we got a full tour of the facility.  We got to meet all the animals and there was a lot more Animal rights talk this time.  I was thankful to see that woodstock condemned “happy meat” and took a much more strict vegan approach that I expected.

They spent quite a bit more time talking about how the animals were treated.  We were also able to hear the stories of a lot of the other animals that were rescued.  As far as I could tell the group was mostly vegetarian because the arguments presented by woodstock farm animal sanctuary seemed to be assuming the crowd was already vegetarian.  Mostly they discussed why milk and eggs involved so much more suffering than meat in a lot of ways.

While I agree that dairy and eggs embodies more suffering than meat, its kind of a dangerous argument to make.  Unfortunately if you make that argument in front of an omni they inevitably start to think about cutting out dairy and eggs but continuing to eat meat.  This pretty much misses the forest for the trees as far as I’m concerned.

I wasn’t quite sure how Chris was going to take our trip to the farm animal sanctuary since we hadn’t been expecting the tour.  Chris seemed to take it all in stride and it even seemed to get him thinking a little bit.  Either way it didn’t spoil his appetite when we went to garden cafe, which we all very much enjoyed.  Although I will be honest the food was a little bit tastier the last time.  Perhaps next time I’ll write a review of garden cafe.

For more images click here

The blissful eating of ignorance

This past weekend I went out to a very good mostly vegan restaurant.  I won’t go into to much about the restaurant since that is not the point of this post… maybe I’ll make another post about the restaurant later.  I found myself in a situation that is all to uncommon in my experience with eating out.  I opened up the menu and I could order almost anything on the menu.  Today a thought occurred to me, which made me look at the world a little differently.

When an omnivore goes out to eat this is generally normal for them.  They don’t consider what is in the food they are eating and consume to their hearts content in blissful ignorance of the source of their food.

As my vegan readers know its an incredibly liberating experience to be able to go into a restaurant and order food confidently without having to go through the litany of questions to determine if the plate that will be brought before you is safe to be considered food.  Most omnivores I have met will eat pretty much anything that appears appetizing and doesn’t have a large skull and crossbones on it.  Being either vegetarian or vegan for so long I have forgotten to some degree what it was like to eat as an omni.

While I understand I’ll never truly eat with the complete disregard that the average American consumes food, even at a purely vegan restaurant with all vegan staff.  At this point what I put into my body is too important to me, also I place restrictions on my diet beyond veganism.  Still, I was struck by the liberating feeling of simply being able to order something on the menu and not give a second though to things like “I hope they didn’t use chicken stock”, “can I really trust the ‘cheese’ is vegan”, “you think there might be honey in that dessert?”.

To me it is certainly not worth the freeing sensation of being able to eat whatever is placed in front of me but it does give a moment pause.  How do get people to think about the food that goes on their fork.  When so many people will consume products shown to be hurtful to their own health up until they are removed from supermarket shelves how do we really get people to think about their food.  What can we do to help this moment of cognative dissonance happen?

Please understand, I recognize there are plenty of people out there that are not likely to change.  When I went to this vegan restaurant, I went with an omni friend of mine.  While I respect Chris on many things he is generally in my mind irrational when it comes to his food.  He is probably one of the most voracious omnivores I have met, he probably thinks I’m just as irrational about religion.  Generally chris will eat pretty much anything that is not currently moving (I think this rule is a little malleable) or labeled as poisonous.  There are a fair number of people out ther though that simply never think what their food was before it was on their fork, what it will do to their body, how much suffering went into it, what it will do to the environment, etc.

Thank you for joining me on my little tangent, you may now resume your previously scheduled program… BEEP

FAQ Updated

Just a quick heads up, I updated my FAQ.  I’ve seen a common trend of people who have visited my site so I thought it was time to start it up.  I’ll add more as people ask me questions so feel free to check back, I’m probably not going to make a post every time I update it.