Author Archives: Brian Hardy

Dealing with Asset Compression in Android Apps

When developing an Android app, any data file, image or XML file (that is, any Resource or Asset) you use is bundled into your application package (APK) for distribution. The Android Asset Packaging Tool, or aapt, is responsible for creating this bundle, which you can think of as a ZIP file with a particular layout [...]

Posted in android | 14 Comments

Announcing Photos of the Beltline

I am pleased to announce the public availability of a site that I have been working on for over a year now. Photos of the BeltLine is a project of Ruth Dusseault, Artist in Residence at the Georgia Tech College of Architecture, designed to engage college-level students and instructors from around Atlanta in the collaborative [...]

Posted in events, ponystyle | Leave a comment

Trials and Errors in Data Transfer

A project that I’ve long been neglecting is the transfer of around 200GB of data from some old hard drives that were in a Linux PC that I had in operation a couple of years ago. What would have ordinarily been a rather trivial task is complicated by the fact that the drives are tethered [...]

Posted in nerdery | 2 Comments

Who wants to rig an election?

As you may have already seen, some smart folks at Princeton’s Center for IT Policy recently discovered something that I think we all suspected was possible: Diebold voting machines are ridiculously insecure. Here is a telling video that proves the point nicely: I encourage you to contact Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox and let [...]

Posted in elections, security | Leave a comment

REI Live Help is amazing

I needed to retrieve my member number and update my info with REI, and I noticed this convenient link to their Live Help feature on the Member Help page. I’ve always been a little skeptical of these things, but I figured I’d give it a shot. Here is a transcript of the end of our [...]

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Arizona: Some Arresting Talent

I’ll admit it: I’ve been keeping this to myself for too long. One of my favorite bands of late, which you may remember from a certain birthday party back in March that got far too much interest from the Atlanta Police, is finally getting some of the critical respect that they’ve definitely earned. Arizona (MySpace) [...]

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If I think hard enough, maybe I can rewind today

Today has been one worth of much ridicule. Here are the low and highlights: Low: waking up at 04:30 to find the kitchen floor pooling water that was dripping from the ceiling. Low: calling in a personal day for work. Low: fretting over how much this was going to cost me. Low: pouring chunky milk [...]

Posted in car, house | Leave a comment

Big Day for Lucille

Lucille got operated on today. With Cody’s assistance and Rolf’s guidance, I changed the primary and secondary fuel filters and cleaned the ALDA banjo bolt and line. The resulting changes in performance were nothing less than extraordinary! Improved acceleration, a much more apparent turbo boost, and a smoother, quieter engine. I’m beginning to wonder exactly [...]

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Saturday 8/19: (I DJ at) Pecan Pie Couture’s Wampum Disco Fashion Party

This Saturday, August 19, I will be joining forces with some awesome local talents to present Pecan Pie Couture‘s Wampum Disco Fashion Party at The Royal, downtown boogie down style. Here are some double-u’s! What? A celebration of Pecan Pie Couture’s Fall Line Who? Factory Aire (Lenny’s, CUDS, SOAP), Al B. Hard (Ponystyle Industries), Disco [...]

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Lucille gets a little injection love

Sunday afternoon is a great time for doing work on the car… especially when it turns out to be very simple! This particular afternoon’s project was the replacement of Lucille’s injection return lines. It was a much-needed service which had not been performed in an unknown amount of time. The Diesel Giant recommends this service [...]

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