Adam's Blog

I've upgraded/downgraded sethadam1.com. As I switched from one server to another, and therefore revisited my very heavily-customized sethadam1.com theme (the beautiful Mystique), I decided it was time to simplify. As such, sethadam1.com 10.3: based on the default Wordpress 3 theme "Twenty Ten." There are minor customizations to the HTML and the CSS, but overall, it's almost entirely stock WP. It's much faster, much leaner, and much easier to maintain. Enjoy.

Just about a year ago I posted my "Phish Wishlist." I'm heading up to 3 shows in Atlantic City this weekend, so it's time to update and revisit this list. What can I cross off this list since then? Two songs: "Dinner and a Movie" and "Walk Away." So I'll start off with the remaining songs:

• Destiny Unbound
• Camel Walk
• Brother
• Scents and Subtle Sounds
• A Song I Heard the Ocean Sing
• Glide
• Harpua
• Spock’s Brain
• Have Mercy
• The Lizards
• Crowd Control

Then I'll add songs I want to see as of now:

• Alumni Blues > LTJP > Alumni Blues
• Gone

I don't think I'll get Alumni or ASIHTOS because they were played last night, and Camel Walk, Lizards, and Brother were ALL played on Sunday. But I do have my fingers crossed for something fun.

"Smegma, dogmatigram, fish market stew." "Walking across the lawn, stepped upon a log." "Tipsy, fuddled, boozy, groggy, elevated prime did edit her." These are the lyrics of Phish. These are the fun, linguistic acrobatics that entertain us. But, from time to time, things get serious we have to acknowledge that we are human, and we have lives, and we have families. Those, too, shape us and our experiences. I think it's common for fans to forget that they're favorite entertainers have lives off the stage, and from time to time, those fans can be both rabid and unforgiving. When I began to read online comments deriding Trey's new ballad, Summer of '89, I was a bothered. When I heard the song debut in Hartford, I thought of it as a light little set-interlude, punctuated by the "and we danced all night" refrain. I wasn’t especially excited about it, but I certainly wasn’t offended by it. On repeat listening, though, I’m feeling differently. I hope we're mature enough as a community to recognize Summer of '89 for what it is: a nice, gentle love song from Trey to his wife. Phish is on the road a lot - less these days,...

Some of you probably know that I've lost a little over 30 pounds since May. I did it with the help of a nutritionist, and I'm really happy with the diet, so much so that I actually stick with it now, three months later, with very little effort. I have since integrated some serious substance back into my diet (ice cream once a week, croutons on salad, occasional "cheat meals", etc), and so far, I'm still losing weight. My theory is that diet is 100% about insulin, and that's controlled by carb intake. Startchy or processed, non-fiberous carbs prompt the production of insulin, which, as it overflows, pushes conversion to fat and triglycerides. More on that later. I use a few tools to aid in recording my progress: Weightbot for iPhone is one of those tools. It's hard to go through this process without tracking your weight. I do so aggressively. I weigh myself 3-8 times a day, which is generally advised against. I do this to understand how weight fluctuates. Even eating a crappy meal won't affect my weight, but a bad weekend, for example will. I bought an accurate scale and I track the weight daily with a...

Some time ago, I developed a VERY simple way to fake a bit.ly-style short URL. On any server that uses any form of an integer to identify an article (either in the database or the URL), on an Apache server that supports mod_rewrite, you edit your .htaccess file like so: RewriteEngine Off RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^index.php$ RewriteRule . index.php [NC,L] This essentially tells your server to redirect anything that isn't a file or directory to index.php. Then index.php looks like this: $url = str_replace("/","",$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']); if(isset($url) && trim($url)!='') { $id = base_convert($url,36,10); //this is where you either query your database for a slug or build the URL $uri = 'http://your-site-goes-here.com/path/to/article'; } if($uri) { header('HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently'); header('Link: < '.$uri.">; rel=shortlink"); header('Location: '.$uri); exit; } else { header("Location: http://your-site-goes-here.com/"); exit; } How do you get your short links? That's easy. Just run this function: $shorturl = base_convert($id,10,36); However, this isn't the most compact way to condense. Obviously, this is base36, the highest PHP can go. But what about uppercase letters? And other characters? So I set out, for some reason, to build a better condenser. This is the result of several hours...

The following post originally appeared on the Phish.net Blog: I admit it: I'm a setlist snob. I started formulating this realization on the field in Indio, when ZZYZX turned to me and said, without the condescension implied, "I remember when I was chasing bust-outs." And my response was succinctly "If we're going to hear a 10 minute jam, I suppose I'd rather have the jam be off of a song I haven't heard before rather than one I've seen a dozen times." But as true as that is, it's not the real story. The real story is that I am chasing bust-outs. Not just bust-outs, but "interesting-ness". And "interesting-ness" changes with the seasons. I'm actually chasing anything at a show that makes me think "Interesting!" I've posted about setlist construction before - to me, as a bit of a Phish geek - it's fascinating. Those seconds when the band takes the stage, before the first notes of any song, are magical and hopeful - anything can happen. Will it be AC/DC Bag? Will it be Punch? Will it be a song I like? A rarity? A random cover? Will it be something that will make the show immediately legendary, like...

The following originally appeared on the Phish.net blog: Today starts Phish summer tour 2010, and I can't help but get sucked into the whole "Phish 3.0" debate: are they still any good? Can they still jam? Will there be any notable performances? Will 2010 be able to hold a candle to Phish 1.0 shows? My friend and colleague ZZYZX recently pointed out that Phish has seemingly been misremebered for their long, exploratory jams, when in reality, they didn't "jam" much until the late 90s. He also points out that perhaps there's less work required to hit the jam stride, the sweet spot of the jam, so to speak. I've been sucked in a few times to debates with people who maintain that Phish isn't the same band they used to be. Of course this is true, they've got decades more experience, they aren't trying to find themselves like they were in the 80s, and they're at a different point in life. But what's also true is what got us here may not get us there, to borrow a business motivation phrase. When I hear the complaint that Phish doesn't write like they used to, citing songs like Reba and Fluffhead,...

I was mixed after the LOST finale. Then I saw the Flashforward finale. Flashforward is a show that did a *lot* of things wrong, but with only two weeks notice they would be canceled, they rearranged a few scenes, solved the largest mystery, and gave us an interesting, hopeful, cliffhanger-y ending. Yes, they ignored or let die the majority of the ancillary mysteries, but overall, it was great, given the circumstances. Lost, on the other hand, was a joke. The gave us a "resolution" to the characters ignoring the fact that they sucked us in with the Island. Dharma. Jacob. The hatch. Hanso. The DeGroots. The intertwining lives. The numbers. Hurley at the institution with Libby. Walt being special. The Egyptian stuff. The statue. The constant. The pregnancy thing. The others. The purge. The pylons. The "files" on the castaways. And they f*$%ed us. They broke our contract - we watched and pieced it together, they were supposed to reveal what happened. And they didn't. They didn't just leave one or two things up to us, they just flat out abandoned the mysteries altogether. I'd say more, but I can't do it better than Eugenia already did. I urge you...

Many people will be disappointed by last night's series finale of LOST. Many will be incredibly satisfied. Count me among both camps. If you were a fan of the show because it was enthralling, as I was, you'll love the finale. It had action, romance, drama, comedy, and a generally happy ending. If you were a fan for the mystery and mythology, as I also was, you will be very disappointed as virtually every core mystery was completely abandoned. Emotionally, I was completely satiated. I was rooting for Sawyer and Juliet to find each other, I was so happy for Claire and Charlie, I thought Jin and Sun played their awakening scene perfectly, Hurley and Libby shared an awakening kiss, and we'd already had our Desmond/Penny reunion. All that was missing was Daniel and Charlotte pairing off. I wish we had seen a happy ending for poor ol' Miles, but I guess he had his dad. Intellectually, I was a little stumped. First, by the solution: um... what? So the entire alternate timeline was post-death, or just the church scene? They joined the alternate timeline when they died in the real timeline? Wait... was the real timeline even real at...