cos

Today between 3pm and 5pm, I went through security and immigration/passport control and boraded flights at two different aiports.

Incheon Airport near Seoul is efficient and conveniently laid out. My train to the airport arrived at 3:45pm on Tuesday, October 22nd. 35 minutes later, at 4:20pm, I was seated on the plane. We took off at 5:15pm.

We landed at Dallas/Fort Worth and got off the plane at 3:20pm on Tuesday, October 22nd - 25 minutes earlier than I'd arrived at Incheon by train. It took me until 4:45pm to get to my gate for the connecting flight to Boston - 25 minutes later than the time I had actually been seated on the plane at Incheon.

...

Shortly after takeoff from Seoul, they served dinner, around 6pm. Or maybe it was late lunch? The sun set while I was eating it, but we got another, smaller meal around 11pm. I took a nap from ~11:30 - ~1:30am and the sun rose while I was sleeping. We got a third meal, "breakfast", at 4am... and then we landed an hour later at 5:15am. Except that it was 3:15pm all of a sudden.

Taking a taxi here is very cheap, so it's closer to being a form of public transit than I'm used to. Today a ~25min ride on mostly highways (fast road swith occasional traffic lights) cost the equivalent of about $15. However, they don't do street addresses - you have to tell them the name of a landmark or place they know, like a major intersection or well known store or church or station.

Today we went out to the main street near our hotel and caught a cab, and I told the driver the name of the place we wanted to go. He thought for a moment and then shook his hand no no no. I said the name again, and he refused again, so we gave up, puzzled. Immediately behind him a second taxi had stopped, so I walked over to that one and said the name of the same place to the driver. He thought for a moment, said yes, and we got in.

When we got to the place, just where it was on my map, I started to give him money but then he saw something at the entry booth that I didn't catch (probably a sign I couldn't understand?) and motioned us to wait a moment while he went up and talked to the person there. He determined the thing we wanted to see had been moved to a different location, so we got back in and he took us to the new location - which turned out to be much further way.

It was a good trip, to Jeju Stone Park as it turned out, but cabs are kinda different here.


Edit: ( We also had a weird experience with the bus... )

Today, I received in the mail from Apple: My AppleCare confirmation and booklet for the iPad I purchased two years ago. It says AppleCare begins on Oct 30, 2011, and coverage expires on Oct 27, 2013.

I had two separate things break on two separate email servers of mine, which conspired together to cause any email sent to any of my personal addresses to be lost starting around 1am eastern time last night. I put a workaround in at about 11am this morning so I won't lost more emails until the main server is back up. But if you sent me anything between around 1am and 11am eastern time today, it's probably lost. If you still have a copy, please send it to me again.

Well, that was an unexpectedly interesting evening.

I thought I was just going to the Davis Square outdoor contra dance. Which I did do.

Shortly after the dance ended, one of the dancers I know found her backpack missing while people were just hanging out talking. It had been there near the end of the dance, and then a few minutes later it wasn't. Several of us walked around looking for it and asking people if they'd seen it. I asked her if she had a phone in the backpack and she said she did, so she tried calling it - nobody answered. Then I asked if she had a "find my iPhone" or equivalent Android app on it, and she did, but didn't think she had a way of using the service from the middle of Davis Square. Fortunately I had both a little laptop, and a phone with tethering, so I got her online and she had it locate her phone...

... which was apparently right there in Davis Square, right where we were! Her friend who was more familiar with that app than us pointed out a button on the side of the page that let us cause the phone to make a noise, so I stayed and kept clicking it while they walked around. "Found it!" It was ringing in someone's pockets. [Edit to clarify: She was the one who yelled out "found it!" or something similar. I was sitting at the computer clicking, she and a friend of hers were walking around listening. When she heard the sound she asked the guy what it was, and he pulled her phone out of his pocket.]

Initially he denied having anything to do with taking a backpack and claimed he just found the phone, but some cops came over and asked him to show what was in his pockets, and when his pockets turned out to contain this girl's credit cards and IDs, his credibility was gone. Eventually the police got him to say that he left the backpack "behind Tedeschi's", and one of them found it in a dumpster. Along with what they got from his pockets and his bag, she ended up getting pretty much everything back, so when all that was done, we went to JP Licks for some ice cream.

That's when I noticed I'd missed a call on my own phone, from my boss. I texted him back, and he responded that we had an outage in production and even though I'm not on call and the on call people were dealing with it, this particular outage is in something that I'm an expect on, so if I wasn't too busy, could I help them out?

We were already about to split up and go home, so I said sure, got home 20 minutes later, and logged in. Indeed, help was needed. The outage was a problem we'd had variations of a few times in the past, and we had a documented workaround (which I had helped develop the first time this sort of thing happened), but this particular incident involved one piece that was different in an important way. The basic strategy of the workaround was still sound, but it had to be done in a different way, and figuring out how to modify it involved understanding details of this part of the system that I know off the top of my head but the other people had to delve in docs and config files for.

After a few false starts, we puzzled out a way to modify this workaround to make it work in this case, and the outage was patched!

And it was also almost midnight.

When I posted about Scientists in Congress nearly 6 years ago, there were four. Of those four, only one remains, although he's been joined by Bill Foster, who I mentioned in that post because he was running for office at the time. We now have two scientists in the House, and zero in the Senate.

But Rush Holt, the one remaining from that list of four, is now running for US Senate in New Jersey.

Cory Booker is going to win this Democratic primary next week, so we're not about to get a scientist in the Senate quite yet... but in a 4-candidate race, Rush Holt is closely tied in polls for second place. I'd love to see him finish a strong second, ahead of the other two candidates, which could make him a likely frontrunner the next time a Senate seat opens up.

Rush Holt has long been one of my favorite members of Congress. He led in the fight against paperless touch screen voting machines, and most recently, he's the one who introduced a bill this year to repeal most of the Patriot Act. He has, of course, been a voice for scientific literacy in Congressional debate. He's also the only Quaker in Congress. He's a former assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, and he's been published in Science!

Who do you know in New Jersey? Can you ask them if they'll vote for Rush Holt on Tuesday?

Mostly for my own reference, but some friends are curious too.

Monday
- Drive to Storrs early, a few hours with Alice at her home.
- Drive to Hartford airport to find out our flight just got canceled
- Rebook for a 6:50pm departure from Newark
- Drive to Newark, arrive 4:30pm, but spend 2 hours on parking, check-in, security, and get on flight late w/no relaxation :(
- Direct flight to Paris, overnight, minus 6 hours due to time zone.

Tuesday
- Arrive Paris, take 1.5 hours to connect w/Joule due to exhaustion and lack of phones
- Go to Mama Shelter hotel w/Joule, check in, then visit her apartment and play with cat
- Joule goes to work, we go to post office and get prepaid SIM
- Return to hotel exhausted, and sleep all afternoon
- Joule meets us at hotel in the evening, we go out for Moroccan food at Chez Younice
- Extend stay at Mama Shelter to Friday, cancel Armstrong hotel reservation

Wednesday
- Get up early, go over to Joule's and have breakfast
- Go w/Joule to post office to get monthly SIM with data service
- Go to work w/Joule, meet her coworkers at BU Paris
- Leave Joule, get food at La Petite Marquise
- Wander around Champ de Mars, Eiffel Tower, riverbank
- Search futileley for metro station to go to Louvre, go to wrong place, backtrack
- Finally get to Louvre 2 hours later. Look at lots of stuff.
- Joule gets off work and joins us at Louvre, since it's open late on Wednesdays
- Spend two hours in the Islamic Art section
- Get things at Louvre bookstore/shop, then go up to Montmartre to meet Christine
- Dinner with Christine at Chez Plumeau in Montmartre, through sunset
- See Sacre Coeur and view of city at night; see oddities at Editions Baleine through their window
- Christine goes home, we go to hotel, Joule goes home

Thursday
- Get up late-ish, meet Joule and have breakfast at pâtisserie/cafe
- Activate SIM and go to post office for troubleshooting.
- Joule goes to work, Alice goes to work/nap at hotel, I go to Google Paris office
- Work day at Google Paris; unexpectedly run into Jeremy from ITA/Google Cambridge
- Meet up with Joule at Ty Billig for BU students' crêpe dinner
- Alice arrives near end of dinner; go with Joule's friend Sandra to creperie next door for second crepe dinner
- Meet elfy at Gare du Nord, on her arrival from Cologne
- Go back to hotel, drop off elfy's stuff, wander around with Joule in search of food
- Joule gives up and goes home; get drinks with Alice and elfy, fail to find any open food except a McDonalds :/
- Go back to hotel w/elfy very late

Friday
- Take lots of photos and be silly at hotel, then pack up stuff and check out
- Joule meets us at hotel, leave stuff there, go to pâtisserie for breakfast and eat at hotel patio
- Transfer from Mama Shelter to Murano hotel closer to middle of Paris
- Go to Ile de la Cité w/elfy & Joule
- Make it to Crêperie des Pêcheurs just in time to eat before closing
- Notre Dame crypt / underground exhibits
- Paris Flower Market on Ile de la Cité
- Walk towards Jardin des Plantes, sit down for drinks, end up getting more crepes
- Continue walking, encounter a locks of love bridge and explore it for a while
- Jardin des Plantes until it closes for the evening
- Dinner at Tavene du Nil on Ile Sainte-Louis
- Walk back across the islands, seeing strange sights at night
- Visit Eiffel tower at night; Joule goes home, elfy+Alice+I stay for midnight sparkly lights
- Back to hotel very late w/elfy

Saturday
- Notre Dame towers with elfy
- Breakfast at pâtisserie, plus supply of macarons!
- Go to Joule's place, meet housemates and neighbor, play with cat
- Lunch at Café aux Ours with elfy and Joule
- elfy catches bus from aux Ours to Gare du Nord to return to Cologne
- Buy socks, go to neighborhood market where Joule's housemate is vending, buy various cool things
- Nap with Alice at Joule's appartment
- Christine's gig, Mary Zoo + Axemunkee @ Joie du Peuple
- Joule takes us to gathering of her friends at a bar/cafe for a friend's birthday
- Tunisian sandwiches for dinner
- Back to hotel with Alice very late

Sunday
- Sleep in! Joule meets us at hotel around noon.
- Back to Crêperie des Pêcheurs for excellent crepes
- Sainte Chapelle, and the Conciergerie (royal and revolutionary guard station and prison)
- Paris Bird market!
- Maison Georges Larnicol with Joule - chocolates and macarons
- Dinner at Le Comptoir du Relais Saint Germain with Joule
- Visit Christine's apartment, get key
- Back to hotel with Alice, not very late

Monday
- Sleep in again!
- Excellent breakfast cafe near hotel, Brasserie au Grand Turenne
- Check out, take cab to Christine's with our bags
- Hang out with Christine's cats for a while
- Attempt to go to sewer museum, but sewers are closed due to flooding from overnight storms
- Walk around, get groceries, buy stamps at post office
- Invalides museum. Joule meets us there after she gets off work.
- Joule leaves us near La Hune bookstore, to go to work dinner
- Notice Church of Saint Germain des Prés, visit it, then La Hune bookstore
- Back to Christine's, wait for her to get home from work
- Take Christine out to dinner at Chez Michel
- Hang out with cats some more and Internet stuff before bed

Tuesday
- Wake up super-early and meet Joule at Gare du Nord
- Train to Verneuil-L'Étang, bus to Parc des Félins
- Half day in the kitty park!
- Bus back to train station, lunch at La Niflette
- Train to Paris, Joule goes to work
- Second visit to sewer museum with Alice, this time they're open
- Alice feels unwell, back to Christine's for a long nap (Alice) and change flights (cos)
- Christine returns from work, go with her to meet Joule for dinner
- Dinner at Auberge des Pyrénées
- Last visit to Joule's apartment, gather stuff we'd left there
- Sleep at Christine's

Wednesday
- Up early, to Gare du Nord with Christine, say goodbye
- Train to airport, flight to Philly, flight to Newark
- Baggage still in Philly, expected on next flight in 3.5 hours
- Drive to New Brunswick, dinner with Phil at Stuff Yer Face
- Back to Newark airport, get luggage, search for motel with vacancy

Thursday
- Morning at motel, then drive to Alice's parents in Montville
- Breakfast/lunch at Alice's parents' house
- Afternoon excursion to their vegetable garden plot, Alice gets plants to take home
- Drive back to Storrs
- Dinner gathering with Alice's local people
- Early to bed

Friday
- Up early, Alice to lab, I drive home to Cambridge

["with Alice" implied everywhere it's not stated, except part of the first Thursday]

1. My friend Yasmin is organizing tabling for Mountain Justice at the All Good music festival in central Ohio July 18-21. Mountain Justice is a coalition of local activists across Appalachia trying to stop mountaintop removal mining. Yasmin tells me last year tabling at All Good was their best fundraising weekends of the year, but she doesn't yet have enough people who can make it to the festival this year to cover the time.

Want to go? You'd do about 12 hours over the course of the 4 day festival, free ticket with vendor camping. She's looking for people who either have some experience tabling for causes, or just care about ending mountaintop removal mining.


2. My friend Katrin, a Boston area musician, has a gig at Toad in Porter Square on July 14th that her bass player can't do. She says this happens from time, and she's looking for another bass player who can learn her songs, rehearse with them sometimes (in Brookline), and fill in on an occasional gig. You can listen to some of her music here. Know any local bass players who may be interested? Send them here!

From: Christina Engelbart
Date: Wednesday, July 3, 2013 6:31 AM
Subject: update on my father

Very sorry to inform my father passed away in his sleep peacefully at
home last night. His health had been deteriorating of late, and took
turn for worse on the weekend. I will circle back around soon, for now
just wanted to give you all advance notice and look forward to
discussing your thoughts as I am a bit fuzzy at present.

He had a grand vision of a better world: What if everyone had their own little computer, usable and convenient, immediately responsive to their actions? What if that computer could display graphics, and allow people access to lots of information and organize it, and let them collaborate with others? Then everyone else working on making the world better, in many different ways and fields -- all of them would be made more effective in their endeavors.

The lab he founded and ran at SRI developed, among other things: the bitmapped display, the mouse, and an early implementation of hypertext. He also spun off the first Internet NIC from his lab, and recruited Elizabeth Feinler to run it.

He had a grand vision, and set to work on it, and made significant progress during a time when very few people were considering such things... and then lived to see it all come true and change the world.



Edit: A good profile in the NY Times.

Yesterday's two events that I'm equally excited about are connected, going back about a decade.

DOMA's legal effects were theoretical when it was passed in 1996, and became real with the gradually growing prevalence of marriage equality, which started here in Massachusetts. In 2004 we had the country's first legal same sex marriages, and Cambridge City Hall opened at midnight on the day that became allowed, to be the first to grant licenses.

Yesterday we had a gathering (smaller and shorter due to happening on only a half day's notice) on the same City Hall lawn to celebrate those same marriages getting federal recognition. One of the people who spoke was state representative Carl Sciortino, who earlier that day officially kicked off his campaign for Congress. He's running to replace Ed Markey, who'd just won election to the US Senate the previous day.

With 12 states - including 4 added in the past year - it's getting harder to remember what it was like the first few years after Massachusetts, when it was Massachusetts (and Vermont's civil unions) vs. the entire rest of the country. In 2008 when California legalized same sex marriage, it was only the second state to do so, and Prop 8 overturned it later that year. In the meantime, every election, several more states passed anti-marriage amendments.

When thinking back to those years, what a lot of people don't appreciate is that Massachusetts wasn't a done deal, and that it wasn't just a court decision; we had to win this at the ballot too, several times over. By that day in May 2004 when the first licenses were granted, Massachusetts' legislature had already voted to ban gay marriage 105-92, a few months earlier.

( The fight to defeat that amendment lasted four more years... )

In 2004, voting to ban gay marriage was considered the "safe" position. Voting against the amendment took political courage.

In 2005, we'd proven the reverse: Vote to ban gay marriage, and you'll get a primary challenger, your job will be at risk, and your chances of running for higher office will be shot. Voting in support of equality, on the other hand, was not only politically safe, but also gained you valuable support (fundraising, volunteers, organizational help) in future campaigns.

In 2006, we continued to prove it and reinforce it, and even the second amendment designed to get as much support as possible fell below 25%.

Carl Sciortino, the state rep who kicked off his run for Congress yesterday morning, was one of the people who started that process. When his state representative refused to support marriage equality, Carl decided to run for office, and he was the challenger who beat a 16 year incumbent in September 2004.

I'm going to post more about him another day soon.

I'm going to Paris a week from today, for my first time there.

Any suggestions?

[ Going with Alice, visiting her sister who lives in Paris, and also visiting my friend Christine and seeing one of her gigs. ]

pitchfork() - daemon fork

Much like fork(), except that the new child automatically also setsid()'s and:
- Has a umask of 0 and working directory "/"
- SIGHUP set to ignore
- Gets new stdin, stdout, stderr handles, all tied to /dev/null

[ Apologizes to non-unix-geek readers. Maybe you'll like my next post. ]