Rick Wang's Weblog

It has been nearly 3 years since I last touched an iptables configuration, and I have totally forgotten it all. This was problematic because my configuration was so locked down for security, it was blocking some ports I wanted open. The first port I want to open was for gkrellm, port 19150. The second port was for Deception OCG, port 44000. For the most part, I followed this set of instructions from the Debian wiki. I suspect this was the exact same page I used the first time. Anyway, as a precautionary measure, iptables configurations are edited in a separate file rather than directly touching the current configuration. This is because a botched iptables configuration causes serious problems. I copied my existing /etc/iptables.up.rules as a starting point, then added the following lines:

-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 19150 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 44000 -j ACCEPT

Next, I loaded the test configuration into iptables by using the iptables-restore command. I tested to make sure everything was working the way I wanted, then I saved the configuration by using the following command:

sudo sh -c "iptables-save > /etc/iptables.up.rules"


I felt like using up some of the whole wheat pastry flour that had been sitting on the shelf for ages, so I decided to make some meat pies. I loosely followed some empanada recipes and came up with a workable dough. My sister helped me wrap lunch's leftover beef stew into the meat pies. I was too lazy to brush with egg wash, so the top did not get a shiny finish. Overall, they tasted okay, but not quite buttery enough on the dough, and the filling was a bit boring after having eaten it for lunch already.

Participants: duo, with Joshua
Location: San Gabriel Mountains, CA, USA
Distance: 3.75 mi each way (hike)
Elevation: 2000 to 4200 feet
Terrain: Shrubland, Foothills, Mountain

I got a lift from Joshua in order to give this trail another try. Last time, I ran out of time due to a late start and had to turn back, so I hoped this attempt would be better. We got lost driving over since apparently Cherry Avenue does not intersect the 210 freeway. However, eventually we parked next to Foxborough Drive and began heading up. The street segment was boring but went by quickly. We held a good pace at first, but eventually hacking away at brush drained away energy and we had to take turns clearing brush. The brush was very pointy and both of us got some bloody nicks despite wearing gloves. Brush aside, the trail had a good rate of gain and was providing a solid workout. Eventually, the combination of Joshua's lack of sleep, and a massive wall of brush forced us to halt the adventure and turn back. The entire area after the last bend is really thick with brush. On the way back, we were surprised to meet a random person who was sitting on the cliff next to the trail. He climbed down and we chatted briefly before moving on. The hike downhill was rather boring, and we made the time go faster by talking about all sorts of random topics.

So, today was my last day working off community service, and I decided to show appreciation by making some food for the people at the church. I decided on panzerotti, since I felt like eating some anyway. I used plain ham, fresh mozzarella, and dried basil for the filling. The dough was just a normal pizza dough that I let sit overnight. I ended up having lots of filling and dough left over, so I made a pizza with it as well. While the results were nowhere near as good as the real panzerotti sold from Luini in Milano, it is passable enough for California. It was really too bad that prosciutto is overpriced here, or I would have used it as filling instead.

Trying to clean up the flour shelf, I combined some bread flour, white whole wheat flour, and spelt flour into this recipe. I made it up and stuck in the rosemary and then the cheese topping on whim. The dough was really sticky and I had to oil my hands to handle it, but I was still able to stretch and fold. I baked a little over 20 minutes at 400F and used roughly 50% hydration. It is nicely fluffy but I don't really like the taste.

Today, my mom handed me a chunk of beef and said "go cook this". Well, that works out since I've been meaning to use the tagine a second time in the oven. I added my ras el hanout mixture, rosemary, frozen figs, and turkey broth. I used turkey broth since water was too boring and we had turkey broth in the house. It cooked at the same time as the semolina bread, but for much longer. Sadly the meat did not get as tender as I would have liked, but overall it came out okay. The sauce is actually a dark color as you can see in the serving picture, not the weird green in the done cooking picture. It was nice to not get burns on the bottom of the tagine from hotspots, however, the tagine continues to emit an odd odor when heated. My mom questioned its workmanship, and I have serious doubts as well. I suspect the glaze is low quality.

I loosely followed this recipe from kingarthurflour.com, except I replaced the butter and dry milk with some dry buttermilk. The bread came together nicely, and has the right consistency for sandwich bread. The only problems were that the sesame seeds fell off, and my scores were not deep enough to prevent bursting. Otherwise, this bread tastes great! I glazed the top with olive oil after baking. After it was done setting, I helped myself to some slices.

After complaining on IRC about my problems with wheat bread, I was referred to this recipe, and the suggestion of a 2:1 whole wheat:bread flour ratio. Well, I was determined to keep it 100% whole wheat, so I tried the recipe mostly as-is. I made two changes: freeform instead of a loaf pan, and olive oil instead of vegetable oil. The bread turned out airier than my previous attempts at whole wheat, which was heartening. However, I do not know if this is due to the recipe, the better mixing of the bread machine, using a warmed oven for rise and proof, or some combination of factors. I'm satisfied except for how the bread spread sideways during proof, despite my attempts to give it surface tension during the shaping. It also deflated significantly when I slashed in the score marks. The honey, dry milk and oil did a great job smoothing out the whole wheat taste and this bread is decent enough to enjoy by itself.

Participants: 4 people, led by Brian
Location: Cleveland National Forest, Santa Ana Mountains, CA, USA
Distance: 5 mi each way (hike)
Elevation: 1950 to 3273 feet
Terrain: Shrubland, Foothills, Mountain

Today, I got a lift from Brian, from the Inland Empire Trail Freaks meetup.com group. Joining us at the trailhead were Trina, whom I had previously met on the Cucamonga Canyon hikes, and Beth, whom I had not met before. Two other people were also in the parking lot, but one was a solo hiker and the other was stopping on the way to work. It was my first time back in the area since passing by often in the past, and I was impressed by the lake having water and how green the area was. Across from the parking lot was a candy shop. After waiting for people to show up, we started hiking the trail a little after 9AM.

This was a dismal failure, as the bread came out horribly dense. However, it still gets a blog entry for the hell of it. Eating this, is like eating a poorly made scone. Only the sweet flavors of the cranberries and raisin keep it semi-edible.

Estiah is a browser-based multiplayer card game/RPG that I have been playing since last year. I manage four characters now, Starwarskid, Deathbringer, Mudkip, and Technoviking. They are all named after internet memes. One of the things I like about the game is the browser based interface, which makes much of the game's data accessible to the user. I had previously written a Battle Parser to analyze replay data, and now I to improve my Python skills by making a new automatic character banner, for use in forum signatures. The resulting source code and calling script are posted on Lodge It!. In making this script, I got to play around with lxml, Python Imaging Library, and pylint. It was my first time using lxml and pylint, and there was some learning curve. I had played around with PIL a little before, and have some background in image processing, so that was easier to pick up. Eventually, when I felt comfortable with it, I announced it on the game forums. The above banner is a static, saved version, and the below banner is a demonstration of actual use. On forums, the html is replaced by the appropriate bbcode equivalent.


<img src="http://www.disasterzone.net/~h4ngedm4n/cgi-bin/estiahbanner.cgi?userid=23806" />

Recently, I decided to learn lxml for parsing html files. There was one big problem however, lxml on Debian etch was version 1.1.1, which did not have the lxml.html module. At first I tried to use lxml.etree, but this seemed rather unwieldly and I decided to get the newest version 2.2.4. Sadly, there was no backport for 2.2.4. I had to resort to using setuptools, better known by its easy_install command.

First, I had to actually install a recent version of setuptools, which was in backports:
sudo apt-get install -t etch-backports python-setuptools

Next, I had to get a bunch of required packages in order to build lxml:
sudo apt-get install python2.4-dev gcc g++ libz-dev libxml2 libxml2-dev libxslt1.1 libxslt1-dev

Although lxml's site did not seem to require g++, I found that gcc did not have some required headers, such as limits.h or stdint.h. The g++ package seemed to provide these files. With everything in place, first I tested in my local directory, then finally used setuptools as root:
sudo easy_install lxml

Verifying it actually installed:
$ python -c "import lxml; print lxml._file_"
/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/lxml-2.2.4-py2.4-linux-i686.egg/lxml/_init_.pyc

$ python
Python 2.4.4 (#2, Oct 22 2008, 19:52:44)
[GCC 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-21)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from lxml import html
/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/lxml-2.2.4-py2.4-linux-i686.egg/lxml/html/_init_.py:12: UserWarning: This version of libxml2 has a known XPath bug. Use it at your own risk.
from lxml import etree
>>>

Oh well, apparently my version of libxml2 sucks. Hopefully it still works, since I do not see a newer version of libxml2 available for etch. For now, in order to suppress this warning, I invoke Python in the following manner:
python -W ignore::UserWarning

For this bread, I experimented with adding bacon in order to make a tastier snack for hiking. I was originally planning on making sandwiches with these, with brie cheese in the middle, but cream cheese was much cheaper. Sadly, the hike was canceled anyway due to the threat of rain later in the day. This bread tastes good, but I rushed it a bit and thus the crumb looks terrible. Also, I had problems with the bread sticking to the tagine despite heavy greasing. From now on, it is back to the pizza stone and baking sheet for baking.

Participants: solo
Location: San Gabriel Mountains, CA, USA
Distance: 7.0 mi round trip
Elevation: 2500 to 5000 feet
Terrain: Shrubland, Foothills, Dry River Basin, Mountain

Today I hiked Deer Canyon, feeling inspired by the topographic map as well as this entry from Dan's Hiking Pages. I was going to meet up with Tom from the meetup group, but I guess he was not feeling well, since no one showed up. I chatted a bit with a San Bernardino County engineer named Joey, who was going to oversee the installation of some new fence. Some time after 9AM, I headed up the rest of Haven Ave. to the start of the trail. I had to walk around a locked fence by the reservoir. Bull Canyon was across the riverbed, and I tried to picture Christopher Brennan rappelling down the cliffs as written in the article. It looked scary.

Participants: solo
Location: San Gabriel Mountains, CA, USA
Distance: 7.5 mi round trip
Elevation: 1600 to 2400 feet
Terrain: Shrubland, Foothills, Forest, Mountain

Originally, I planned to check out Sunset Ridge, approaching from Claremont Hills. However, the ascent was more irregular than I would have liked, so I decided to check out Marshall Canyon and Gail Mtwy instead. In the end, it felt like a longer version of the same Claremont Hills course, except there were much more gnats in Marshall Canyon. The eucalyptus scent I carried help reduce the nuisance, but did not eliminate it completely. The way down from Gail Mtway was paved asphalt, and rather boring. I had to squeeze through a gap in the fence to make it through to Thompson River trail.