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Oct. 12th, 2012 18:24
Good food near Norwood?
Anyone reading this happen to know of a good place to eat on or near Route 1 in south Norwood, MA?
Oct. 9th, 2012 14:13
No Sleep, Must Click & Drag
Seeing Sleep No More for a second time last night evoked xkcd Click and Drag. I was expecting to see many of the same scenes and settings I saw the first time, with a better understanding of what was happening. I was not expecting what actually happened: spending the majority of my time seeing scenes and settings I hadn't even known were there the first time. And even though I visited at least one floor this time that I know I never ventured onto at all last time, I also know there's at least one more floor I still haven't been to. Maybe more than one.
[Something I posted to Blue Mass Group this morning]
Politifact and FactCheck.org can be very useful if you actually read what they write, and use your knowledge, in context, to add to your understanding of the facts surrounding what candidates say. But I've found their top line true vs. false judgments to be puzzling or even comical in the way they seem to ignore the substance and intent of the utterances they're rating.
Sometimes it's as if a candidate were to tell a midwest audience "I spoke in Boston yesterday," and one of these factcheck orgnizations rated it a lie, explaining "she had an event in Cambridge, MA, yesterday, but never set foot in the nearby city of Boston."
( Here's an example of what I mean, from last night's debate )
So, do make heavy use of Politifact and FactCheck.org to understand the facts behind what candidates say. But don't be misled by their ratings or take them at face value; read, analyze, and come to your own conclusions.
Politifact and FactCheck.org can be very useful if you actually read what they write, and use your knowledge, in context, to add to your understanding of the facts surrounding what candidates say. But I've found their top line true vs. false judgments to be puzzling or even comical in the way they seem to ignore the substance and intent of the utterances they're rating.
Sometimes it's as if a candidate were to tell a midwest audience "I spoke in Boston yesterday," and one of these factcheck orgnizations rated it a lie, explaining "she had an event in Cambridge, MA, yesterday, but never set foot in the nearby city of Boston."
( Here's an example of what I mean, from last night's debate )
So, do make heavy use of Politifact and FactCheck.org to understand the facts behind what candidates say. But don't be misled by their ratings or take them at face value; read, analyze, and come to your own conclusions.
I wrote this post on Blue Mass Group this morning. Reposting here.
In another enforcement action, the young Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is forcing Discover to refund $200 million to credit card customers due to deceptive marketing practices that tricked customers into signing up for services they didn't realize would cost what they cost. Earlier this summer, the CFPB made Capital One refund $150 million to their customers for similar deceptive marketing.
One thing that occurs to me: If we'd had today's CFPB in 2005 & 2006, they would've come down hard on the rampant fraudulent mortgage lending that was going on at the time, because that too was tricking millions of people into buying financial products using deceptive marketing. If we'd had the CFPB then, that would have put the brakes not only on the crazy mortgages, but on the deceptively-high rated junk derivatives Wall Street firms made out of those mortgages. It's not necessary, I think, to give giant punitive fines to stop this behavior; if the CFPB consistently catches these companies and makes them refund the ill-earned money, it makes it more profitable for them to put their energy into making money through more honest pursuits, and that's all we need.
Another thing occurs to me: Richard Cordray, head of the CFPB, was a recess appointment, and his term expires next year - the first year of the next Presidential term. Obama made a recess appointment specifically because Republicans opposed letting the CFPB have a director at all. It's not that they opposed Richard Cordray specifically; they explicitly said they'd filibuster anyone nominated for the position. They're committed to decentralizing and weakening the CFPB, if they can't get it abolished altogether.
Remember what the Bush administration did to FEMA, and other government agencies they didn't like or didn't take seriously? At least those agencies had long enough histories that we could see their performance in those years as an aberration. But the CFPB will be just over two years old when Richard Cordray's term expires. If Mitt Romney is president then, expect its reputation to be ruined before it really establishes itself, and before it has a long enough track record for people to see its real value.
In another enforcement action, the young Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is forcing Discover to refund $200 million to credit card customers due to deceptive marketing practices that tricked customers into signing up for services they didn't realize would cost what they cost. Earlier this summer, the CFPB made Capital One refund $150 million to their customers for similar deceptive marketing.
One thing that occurs to me: If we'd had today's CFPB in 2005 & 2006, they would've come down hard on the rampant fraudulent mortgage lending that was going on at the time, because that too was tricking millions of people into buying financial products using deceptive marketing. If we'd had the CFPB then, that would have put the brakes not only on the crazy mortgages, but on the deceptively-high rated junk derivatives Wall Street firms made out of those mortgages. It's not necessary, I think, to give giant punitive fines to stop this behavior; if the CFPB consistently catches these companies and makes them refund the ill-earned money, it makes it more profitable for them to put their energy into making money through more honest pursuits, and that's all we need.
Another thing occurs to me: Richard Cordray, head of the CFPB, was a recess appointment, and his term expires next year - the first year of the next Presidential term. Obama made a recess appointment specifically because Republicans opposed letting the CFPB have a director at all. It's not that they opposed Richard Cordray specifically; they explicitly said they'd filibuster anyone nominated for the position. They're committed to decentralizing and weakening the CFPB, if they can't get it abolished altogether.
Remember what the Bush administration did to FEMA, and other government agencies they didn't like or didn't take seriously? At least those agencies had long enough histories that we could see their performance in those years as an aberration. But the CFPB will be just over two years old when Richard Cordray's term expires. If Mitt Romney is president then, expect its reputation to be ruined before it really establishes itself, and before it has a long enough track record for people to see its real value.
Loads of local musicians wanted to do something after the Columbia house fire two weeks ago, and the biggest event to come out of that outpouring of want-to-help from the community is this festival, this Sunday midafternoon through evening, all through Union Square:
What the former Columbia house residents need most now is to find new places to live, but this looks like an amazing event and $10 for the whole day is a great deal. Full schedule is on the Facebook event page.
I'm especially excited about this portion of the Precinct lineup:
[Edit: And I just learned that Flying Blue Squirrels, with Columbia resident Mary Bichner, have a set at Sally O'Brien's at 9pm. ]
P.S. There will be a Help, Our Bands Are on Fire #2 next Thursday ight, September 13th, at the Middle East
- Help! Our Bands are on Fire
Over 25 bands and performers at 3 venues
~4pm - ~11pm, Union Square, Somerville
Precinct
Sally O'Brien's
PA's Lounge
... plus street performers outside in Union Square
What the former Columbia house residents need most now is to find new places to live, but this looks like an amazing event and $10 for the whole day is a great deal. Full schedule is on the Facebook event page.
I'm especially excited about this portion of the Precinct lineup:
- 5:30 -- Sarah Rabdau
6:00 -- Laura Cortese (with Valerie Thompson on cello!)
6:30 -- Molly Zenobia
7:00 -- Ginger Ibex
[Edit: And I just learned that Flying Blue Squirrels, with Columbia resident Mary Bichner, have a set at Sally O'Brien's at 9pm. ]
P.S. There will be a Help, Our Bands Are on Fire #2 next Thursday ight, September 13th, at the Middle East
Sep. 4th, 2012 11:01
Goli and the little dancers
Some videos of the most adorable Goli gig, over on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cosmusic.
cosmusic.
Aug. 30th, 2012 18:52
Columbia House
A week ago this morning, the house down the block and around the corner from mine that we called "Columbia house" was burning.
![[photo of burned house]](https://p2.dreamwidth.org/74a42b964d17/173493-94565/mip.aaaaa.org/mip/imghost/columbiahousepostfire.jpg)
All 12 residents got out okay, but the 3-alarm fire kept going for over 6 hours, the street corner remained closed all day, and construction contractors spent the following day removing the remnants of the 3rd floor from the house. Nobody will be living there anytime soon.
I've had Molly and Valerie as tenants at my house since 2008, and that entire time, we've been closely connected with the rotating cast of residents of the 1st and 2nd floors of Columbia house. Valerie's band-partner Vessela from Goli lived there for a few years, until she moved to Cloud Club (where Molly's best friend Mali lives) last year; Valerie's best friend Brendan - who often plays guitar in Molly's band - was there the whole time, until last week's fire.
Their front door was about 50 paces from ours, and people were frequently going back and forth. Our friend Mary who lived there likened her relationship to my place as being like the wacky neighbor in a sitcom who's always over, and if you've ever seen any of those sitcoms where people who technically live in separate places act like they're just different parts of the same apartment, that's a good parallel to what we had. On day, shortly after she moved in, Valerie delightedly said "the street is my living room!" as she was flitting back and forth between there and home. That's also what it was like sometimes.
My house was physically undamaged, but it's like we lost half of it.
Firefighters did an amazing job of saving most of the musical instruments, though some of the ones they got out intact may have some water damage. For the past week we've been using my house as a community center for them, a place for people to drop off donations, a place for meals and gatherings, and lots of laundry. We kept the doors open to any of them to come in, use the restroom, eat something, pick up useful things. When they were let back into Columbia house on Monday to see what they could save, most of it went into our basement, where we've been running an ozone machine someone lent us to eliminate the smoke+fire smell from stuff. We've also gotten to know the 3rd floor residents, since we've included them in all of this.
Our living room is packed with sorted donations, our kitchen filled with food (including prepared meals from friends), our finished basement with instruments and objects from the house, and we've had former residents and many friends in and out every day.
I feel like we got an extension on having them as our neighbors, and I fear that when they find new places to live - which I hope they will soon - they may be farther away, scattered in different places, and only then will it really hit me.
P.S. Come to this 3-venue benefit festival for Columbia house's former residents, in Union Square, Somerville, on Sunday September 9th. 24 bands, 4:30pm-11pm, at Precinct, PA's Lounge, and Sally O'Brien's.
[ Edit: Brendan Burns posted about his experience of the day of the fire on his blog. ]
All 12 residents got out okay, but the 3-alarm fire kept going for over 6 hours, the street corner remained closed all day, and construction contractors spent the following day removing the remnants of the 3rd floor from the house. Nobody will be living there anytime soon.
I've had Molly and Valerie as tenants at my house since 2008, and that entire time, we've been closely connected with the rotating cast of residents of the 1st and 2nd floors of Columbia house. Valerie's band-partner Vessela from Goli lived there for a few years, until she moved to Cloud Club (where Molly's best friend Mali lives) last year; Valerie's best friend Brendan - who often plays guitar in Molly's band - was there the whole time, until last week's fire.
Their front door was about 50 paces from ours, and people were frequently going back and forth. Our friend Mary who lived there likened her relationship to my place as being like the wacky neighbor in a sitcom who's always over, and if you've ever seen any of those sitcoms where people who technically live in separate places act like they're just different parts of the same apartment, that's a good parallel to what we had. On day, shortly after she moved in, Valerie delightedly said "the street is my living room!" as she was flitting back and forth between there and home. That's also what it was like sometimes.
My house was physically undamaged, but it's like we lost half of it.
Firefighters did an amazing job of saving most of the musical instruments, though some of the ones they got out intact may have some water damage. For the past week we've been using my house as a community center for them, a place for people to drop off donations, a place for meals and gatherings, and lots of laundry. We kept the doors open to any of them to come in, use the restroom, eat something, pick up useful things. When they were let back into Columbia house on Monday to see what they could save, most of it went into our basement, where we've been running an ozone machine someone lent us to eliminate the smoke+fire smell from stuff. We've also gotten to know the 3rd floor residents, since we've included them in all of this.
Our living room is packed with sorted donations, our kitchen filled with food (including prepared meals from friends), our finished basement with instruments and objects from the house, and we've had former residents and many friends in and out every day.
I feel like we got an extension on having them as our neighbors, and I fear that when they find new places to live - which I hope they will soon - they may be farther away, scattered in different places, and only then will it really hit me.
P.S. Come to this 3-venue benefit festival for Columbia house's former residents, in Union Square, Somerville, on Sunday September 9th. 24 bands, 4:30pm-11pm, at Precinct, PA's Lounge, and Sally O'Brien's.
[ Edit: Brendan Burns posted about his experience of the day of the fire on his blog. ]
Aug. 11th, 2012 13:01
Paul Ryan vs. Women
Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's choice for Vice President, co-sponsored a bill in Congress that said,
"The life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood."
Full Constitutional rights for just-fertilized zygotes.
No exceptions were in the bill. Even the pill would've violated this law.
P.S. It failed to pass in the last Congress, so he co-sponsored it again when it was reintroduced to the current Congress.
"The life of each human being begins with fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent, irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood."
Full Constitutional rights for just-fertilized zygotes.
No exceptions were in the bill. Even the pill would've violated this law.
P.S. It failed to pass in the last Congress, so he co-sponsored it again when it was reintroduced to the current Congress.
Daisy and I went to Yosemite on Memorial Day weekend. Saturday, we drove west to east across the park, to Lee Vining and Mono Lake just outside the park to its east. Sunday, we went back across from Mono Lake to the west (and into Yosemite Valley in the afternoon).
Saturday was winter:
Sunday was summer:
[ One more video: Early part of the drive into Yosemite Valley ]
Saturday was winter:
Sunday was summer:
[ One more video: Early part of the drive into Yosemite Valley ]
Sofie Peeters, a film student at RITS in Brussels, did for her final thesis a film about the street harassment she encounters when walking in her neighborhood. She was interviewed on the Flemish TV program Terzake, who then played her entire film on air:
[Edit: I think LJ is having trouble embedding this video. If you see a big blank space here, click the link above and watch the video there.]
It's a mix of Flemish and French with English subtitles, except for one part in the middle where it's French with Flemish subtitles. That's the part where she asks two groups of men why they impose crude comments on women walking by. Here's a Google Translate of the Flemish subtitles - of course this is a bit of broken telephone, since even the subtitles aren't excellent to begin with (according to commenters who speak Flemish), but it should give you the gist of it.
( Translation of subtitles of Sofie's dialogue w/harassers )
Someone posted a YouTube clip from her film to reddit, where a good discussion ensued, including lots stories about experiences with street harassment. [Tip for reading reddit discussions: You can click on the "[-]" next to the vote arrows for any comment to collapse that comment and its subthreads.]
[Edit: I think LJ is having trouble embedding this video. If you see a big blank space here, click the link above and watch the video there.]
It's a mix of Flemish and French with English subtitles, except for one part in the middle where it's French with Flemish subtitles. That's the part where she asks two groups of men why they impose crude comments on women walking by. Here's a Google Translate of the Flemish subtitles - of course this is a bit of broken telephone, since even the subtitles aren't excellent to begin with (according to commenters who speak Flemish), but it should give you the gist of it.
( Translation of subtitles of Sofie's dialogue w/harassers )
Someone posted a YouTube clip from her film to reddit, where a good discussion ensued, including lots stories about experiences with street harassment. [Tip for reading reddit discussions: You can click on the "[-]" next to the vote arrows for any comment to collapse that comment and its subthreads.]
On the one hand, I have a 5 day weekend: We have Wednesday through Friday as a company holiday at work.
On the other hand, I'm secondary on call for a week starting Thursday. Secondary means I am not likely to get many calls, or perhaps even any calls, but I still need to be available to take a call and get online within ten minutes and work.
I'd like to find a pretty place to take someone for a couple of days, not far from here, where we could stay and relax and hang out and pretend to be on vacation while still being able to work on short notice. Ideally such a place would be/have:
- Within about a 2 hour drive from Boston
- Good wifi and/or very good Verizon signal
- Convenient indoors & outdoors; indoors with a desk and AC and power and stuff, outdoors just a doorway or porch away with pretty nature
- DVD player with TV, or screen that easily takes video from a MacBook, so we can watch movies
- Water, particularly swimmable water, like being on a lake or stream. Water that is even a short drive away is not practical; water we could go in but still hear a phone and get back indoors within minutes would be excellent
Do you know a place like that to recommend?
Edit: What I mean by "a place" is a specific place, rather than a general area where such places might exist. I know the area (Berkshires, Cape, Maine, etc.), I just don't know specific places to stay that are like I describe. I'm sure there are plenty, but there isn't an easy way to search online by those characteristics, so they're hard to find when I don't already know them.
On the other hand, I'm secondary on call for a week starting Thursday. Secondary means I am not likely to get many calls, or perhaps even any calls, but I still need to be available to take a call and get online within ten minutes and work.
I'd like to find a pretty place to take someone for a couple of days, not far from here, where we could stay and relax and hang out and pretend to be on vacation while still being able to work on short notice. Ideally such a place would be/have:
- Within about a 2 hour drive from Boston
- Good wifi and/or very good Verizon signal
- Convenient indoors & outdoors; indoors with a desk and AC and power and stuff, outdoors just a doorway or porch away with pretty nature
- DVD player with TV, or screen that easily takes video from a MacBook, so we can watch movies
- Water, particularly swimmable water, like being on a lake or stream. Water that is even a short drive away is not practical; water we could go in but still hear a phone and get back indoors within minutes would be excellent
Do you know a place like that to recommend?
Edit: What I mean by "a place" is a specific place, rather than a general area where such places might exist. I know the area (Berkshires, Cape, Maine, etc.), I just don't know specific places to stay that are like I describe. I'm sure there are plenty, but there isn't an easy way to search online by those characteristics, so they're hard to find when I don't already know them.
Jun. 5th, 2012 20:42
macbook air
I used to think the reason the Macbook Air was not the right computer for me was its lack of FireWire port. But I have an Air from work for work use, and right now I can't find the ethernet adaptor for it. The idea that I have a computer that makes it possible to lose its ethernet port somewhat horrifies me. Lack of FireWire now seems secondary.
May. 13th, 2012 23:05
An MIT wedding
The mother of the bride read a selection from Neil Gaiman during the ceremony.
Later, when the sound system misbehaved during dinner, guess what got yelled out?
Later, when the sound system misbehaved during dinner, guess what got yelled out?
May. 9th, 2012 13:50
The Year 2038 Problem
[ Context for noncomputergeeks: A lot of computer systems based on Unix or Unix-derived software store times as number of seconds since the beginning of 1970. Midnight on Dec 31 1969 / Jan 1 1970, is "0" time. If you use a signed 32 bit number to store time, the highest possible value is in 2038; over the past decade, the computer world has been shifting from 32 bit to 64 bit systems, but there are still lots of data formats based on storing 32 bit values. ]
I used to think we have plenty of time to convert all of our computing and data formats to 64 bit times before the year 2038. But an email discussion at work made me look at it in a new light:
"Back when I worked at a bank, we started seeing bugs in 2008 for 30 year mortgages."
I used to think we have plenty of time to convert all of our computing and data formats to 64 bit times before the year 2038. But an email discussion at work made me look at it in a new light:
"Back when I worked at a bank, we started seeing bugs in 2008 for 30 year mortgages."
In Death to Word: It's time to give up on Microsoft's word processor [Slate magazine], the author writes,
In 2005, 2006, 2007, I used to make a little bit of money on the side by making web sites for political campaigns. Which meant they'd email me the text they wanted for some of the pages. Asking them not to send me Word had a low success rate.
Eventually, I raised my rates by about 10%, and offered a discount of the exact same amount I'd raised my rates by, if they agreed to never send me any Microsoft Word files. That worked, and made my work so much more pleasant!
If only I could've rid the net of Internet Explorer 6 back then, too.
- "Like the fax machine, Word was designed to put things on paper. It was a tool of the desktop-publishing revolution [...] For most people now, though, publishing means putting things on the Web. Desktop publishing has given way to laptop or smartphone publishing. And Microsoft Word is an atrocious tool for Web writing."
In 2005, 2006, 2007, I used to make a little bit of money on the side by making web sites for political campaigns. Which meant they'd email me the text they wanted for some of the pages. Asking them not to send me Word had a low success rate.
Eventually, I raised my rates by about 10%, and offered a discount of the exact same amount I'd raised my rates by, if they agreed to never send me any Microsoft Word files. That worked, and made my work so much more pleasant!
If only I could've rid the net of Internet Explorer 6 back then, too.
Apr. 11th, 2012 16:45
no meetings
Looking at my work calendar for today and seeing ... nothing ... felt surreal.
I scanned back on the calendar until I came across the last day I had no meetings, January 4th. Well, there were two, but they were marked "no" so I thought they'd been cancelled - until my coworker said "weren't you traveling then?" Oh yeah, that's the day Daisy and I drove back from New York. I'd worked from the NY Google office while we were in NY and then I took a day off for the drive back. So I scanned further back in my calendar... aha. My most recent work day with no meetings was Wednesday, November 30th.
I scanned back on the calendar until I came across the last day I had no meetings, January 4th. Well, there were two, but they were marked "no" so I thought they'd been cancelled - until my coworker said "weren't you traveling then?" Oh yeah, that's the day Daisy and I drove back from New York. I'd worked from the NY Google office while we were in NY and then I took a day off for the drive back. So I scanned further back in my calendar... aha. My most recent work day with no meetings was Wednesday, November 30th.
Daisy's dad, Gordon Ball, was a friend of Allen Ginsburg's, and recently wrote this book about him. The title refers to the farm he lived at with Ginsburg and a few others in the late 60s.
He's on a book tour, doing readings, and will be here in Boston on Thursday. The reading will be Thursday, 7pm, at the Harvard Coop. If this sounds interesting to you, come!
He's on a book tour, doing readings, and will be here in Boston on Thursday. The reading will be Thursday, 7pm, at the Harvard Coop. If this sounds interesting to you, come!
Republican candidates are harping about high gas prices on one hand, and calling for war with Iran on the other.
Maybe these Republican presidential candidates now what they're doing, and are pushing war talk to raise gas prices to give them a campaign issue. Maybe they're too stupid to figure it out. Maybe they actually believe what they're saying about drilling being the solution (though that's false). Maybe they just don't care, as long as they have an excuse to push for more profits for oil companies while criticizing Obama.
But regardless of their beliefs or motivations, the fact is that these Republicans are more responsible for the high gas prices they're criticizing, than Obama's administration is. And they're the ones who can actually do something about it: If they all agreed to calm down about Iran, and made a joint public statement about it, gas prices probably would drop a little.
I find it frustrating that this contradiction isn't being pointed out in the press or public debate about the presidential campaign. So I posted this on reddit. Please upvote.
Maybe these Republican presidential candidates now what they're doing, and are pushing war talk to raise gas prices to give them a campaign issue. Maybe they're too stupid to figure it out. Maybe they actually believe what they're saying about drilling being the solution (though that's false). Maybe they just don't care, as long as they have an excuse to push for more profits for oil companies while criticizing Obama.
But regardless of their beliefs or motivations, the fact is that these Republicans are more responsible for the high gas prices they're criticizing, than Obama's administration is. And they're the ones who can actually do something about it: If they all agreed to calm down about Iran, and made a joint public statement about it, gas prices probably would drop a little.
I find it frustrating that this contradiction isn't being pointed out in the press or public debate about the presidential campaign. So I posted this on reddit. Please upvote.
Here's that NPR news piece from last week:
Google And Cape Air Launch New Reservation System (click "Listen Now")
... and a few other articles about it:
Cape Air simplifies reservations system [Cape Cod Times]:
Cape Air taps ITA for reservation system [Boston Globe]:
Cape Air's Reservation System Transition to ITA Was So Good, You Didn't Know It Even Happened [the Cranky Flier]:
Some of the comments on the Cranky Flier post are worth reading, too.
[ Well, I did also spend about a week and a half of 12+ hour days on the United Continental cutover too, but that was as part of anaffected partner airline (Cape Air does a lot of Continental codeshares - now United - in the Caribbean) rather than directly. ]
Google And Cape Air Launch New Reservation System (click "Listen Now")
... and a few other articles about it:
Cape Air simplifies reservations system [Cape Cod Times]:
- HYANNIS - At Cape Air's call center Wednesday, some new agents were in their first week on the job, and they'd already mastered the reservations system.
Last week, that probably wouldn't have been possible.
Cape Air has launched a new system company officials laud as more efficient and easier to use - for both staff and passengers.
Cape Air taps ITA for reservation system [Boston Globe]:
- The days of airline agents typing and typing to get their computers to spit out reservation information could be numbered if ITA Software's new airline reservation system takes off.
Cape Air's Reservation System Transition to ITA Was So Good, You Didn't Know It Even Happened [the Cranky Flier]:
- All the talk this week has been about United's massive reservation system transition, but that wasn't the only move of this type in the last couple weeks. Cape Air made the switch recently to a brand new airline reservation system made by none other than Google's ITA Software. While United's transition was bigger in scale, Cape Air's transition is potentially the most important of the two.
Some of the comments on the Cranky Flier post are worth reading, too.
[ Well, I did also spend about a week and a half of 12+ hour days on the United Continental cutover too, but that was as part of anaffected partner airline (Cape Air does a lot of Continental codeshares - now United - in the Caribbean) rather than directly. ]
Feb. 29th, 2012 20:23
WBUR tomorrow morning
If you want to know what I've been working on so much for the past 8 months, or why hardly anyone has seen me since Arisia except my coworkers and the people who frequent my house, tune in to WBUR 90.9FM tomorrow morning (on the air or online) at 6:45am US/Eastern, or the rebroadcast at 8:45am US/Eastern.
If it's available for relistening later in the day on their web site, I'll update this post with a link at some point.
If it's available for relistening later in the day on their web site, I'll update this post with a link at some point.
Feb. 14th, 2012 20:54
arora's confessional
Although work-crazy this month means my participation will be much more limited than in past years, aroraborealis's annual anonymous confessional post is up. I'll at least catch up later on the threads I miss now.
Anyway, I think these are more fun the wider the sets of social circles participating, so people can't assume they know the people behind the anonymous comments. So pass on the link to people you know who arora doesn't know. Or even people you know who I don't know! :)
aroraborealis's annual anonymous confessional post is up. I'll at least catch up later on the threads I miss now.Anyway, I think these are more fun the wider the sets of social circles participating, so people can't assume they know the people behind the anonymous comments. So pass on the link to people you know who arora doesn't know. Or even people you know who I don't know! :)
Jan. 31st, 2012 19:04
The former Soviet Onion
Someone made a typo in their question on AskReddit a couple of weeks ago. A pun thread ensued.
What are your opinions on the former Soviet Onion?
"There are layers upon layers of issues regarding this. Every time you peel one layer back, you find another underneath. It's enough to make me cry, most times."
"Perhaps you should consult wiki leeks."
Click the link for more, so much more...
[ If you want to see serious answers to the intended question, click here instead. ]
What are your opinions on the former Soviet Onion?
"There are layers upon layers of issues regarding this. Every time you peel one layer back, you find another underneath. It's enough to make me cry, most times."
"Perhaps you should consult wiki leeks."
Click the link for more, so much more...
[ If you want to see serious answers to the intended question, click here instead. ]
Jan. 29th, 2012 23:34
Working Weekends
Working on the weekend from home is very different when a significant proportion of my coworkers are doing the same thing. In the past, home weekend work was usually a quiet opportunity to spend a few hours focused on some project I'd neglected, or catching up on backlog. But with all these other people also online, it turns into context-switchy collaborative work almost as fast-paced as on a weekday.
Tomorrow, a lot of web sites will either black out or change their front page to protest new Internet censorship legislation, SOPA in the US House and PIPA in the US Senate. Wikipedia's entire English language section will be replaced, for the day, with a page urging people to call Congress.
SOPA and PIPA are a pair of bills pushed by the entertainment industry (MPAA, RIAA, and so on) to combat copyright infringement by throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Basically it takes the stance that having a free and open Internet is a bad thing because people use it to copy movies and things without paying for them, so let's not have a free and open Internet and maybe people will do less of that stuff.
In November, Facebook, Google, eBay, Zynga, AOL, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Mozilla (Firefox), and twitter jointly placed a full page add in the NY Times opposing SOPA and PIPA. Sadly, the media content industry has a lot of money and lobbying power, and most members of Congress don't understand the net.* Some people who understand the net very well wrote this Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress in December. Signatories to that letter include almost everyone I can think of who played a prominent early role in creating the Internet and developing its key technical standards, including a lot of leaders of the Internet Engineering Task Force which oversees those technical standards today. And last week, the MIT Media Lab published their statement of opposition to SOPA & PIPA where they highlight censorship and human rights concerns.
So get in ahead of the rush. With Wikipedia (along with reddit, boingboing, craigslist, and others) protesting, Congressional phone lines will be swamped tomorrow. If you're in the US, call your Representative and both Senators today. You can look up their contact information by plugging your ZIP code into Congress.org.
You can learn a lot about the bills from the links above, but what you say on the phone call can be as simple as this:
When calling your Representative: "Please oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act if it comes out of committee."
When calling each Senator: "I hear that a vote on the Protect IP act is scheduled for later this month. Please vote against it."
* BTW, wanna help someone awesome who does understand the net get elected to Congress? Darcy Burner, Computer Science degree from Harvard '96, worked at several software companies. I've met her. She's both nerdy and awesome.
SOPA and PIPA are a pair of bills pushed by the entertainment industry (MPAA, RIAA, and so on) to combat copyright infringement by throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Basically it takes the stance that having a free and open Internet is a bad thing because people use it to copy movies and things without paying for them, so let's not have a free and open Internet and maybe people will do less of that stuff.
In November, Facebook, Google, eBay, Zynga, AOL, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Mozilla (Firefox), and twitter jointly placed a full page add in the NY Times opposing SOPA and PIPA. Sadly, the media content industry has a lot of money and lobbying power, and most members of Congress don't understand the net.* Some people who understand the net very well wrote this Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress in December. Signatories to that letter include almost everyone I can think of who played a prominent early role in creating the Internet and developing its key technical standards, including a lot of leaders of the Internet Engineering Task Force which oversees those technical standards today. And last week, the MIT Media Lab published their statement of opposition to SOPA & PIPA where they highlight censorship and human rights concerns.
So get in ahead of the rush. With Wikipedia (along with reddit, boingboing, craigslist, and others) protesting, Congressional phone lines will be swamped tomorrow. If you're in the US, call your Representative and both Senators today. You can look up their contact information by plugging your ZIP code into Congress.org.
You can learn a lot about the bills from the links above, but what you say on the phone call can be as simple as this:
When calling your Representative: "Please oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act if it comes out of committee."
When calling each Senator: "I hear that a vote on the Protect IP act is scheduled for later this month. Please vote against it."
* BTW, wanna help someone awesome who does understand the net get elected to Congress? Darcy Burner, Computer Science degree from Harvard '96, worked at several software companies. I've met her. She's both nerdy and awesome.
Jan. 4th, 2012 23:26
DevOps Jesus
Sysadmin/hacker/geek-ish people: You may want to follow devops_jesus on twitter. Some of my favorites so far:
- I never ascended bodily to Heaven - 1st century Judeans didn't understand what "migrating to the Cloud" meant.
The founder of Christianity abruptly quit the project so the documentation had to be written by a community of volunteers.
For those who don't know, #php is the technology that the Sodom and Gomorrah Tourist Board's website was built in.
Keep your teams small. I know from experience that even adding a twelfth member can destroy the dynamic.
The best thing about being born of a virgin is not having to deal with your parents having had sex.
The best thing about being a #devop is not having to deal with your colleagues having had sex.
