BookBlog

Boston: can't get there from here

I'm spending the xmas-to-newyears week on the east coast, with midweek in Boston visiting friends in JP, Brighton and Somerville. That itinerary has a serious "can't get there from here" problem. Rental car parking is somewhere between awkward and impossible. The subway system is hub and spoke; getting from one one spoke to another is cumbersome. It would be pretty cool if Boston had what various European cities have: commuter bicycle rentals with easy access to the train station. Slow bus rides ahead, instead.

ps. Why the reluctance to ride the bus? Because I get carsick reading on buses but not trains.

half-full or 3/4 empty

at a San Francisco dinner shindig, with a group of startup people, money people, and others in the subculture. The genetic effevescence was about remix culture, clean energy, 3d hacking, and the digital native generation.

I don't know whether it is just me but every silver lining has a pretty heavy cloud. Clean energy is grand, especially if it can help compensate for the very large amounts of fossil fuel energy it takes to make our food. Remix culture is cool, except for the fact that it is largely illegal, and remixers could get priced out of the market in a non-net-neutral economy. Kids in the US will grow up with tech as a native language; and 50% of kids will be obese; and many will have fewer opportunities than their parents. People in the room felt free to snark about "your call may be monitored by the NSA", but Senate Intel just voted not to investigate illegal spying. The polar bears are dying in the heat.

The short-term looks fun and interesting; the longer term looks murky.

Commuter bike

So, in my first full day in California, I returned the rental car and got a rental commuter bike. My house is 2 flat miles from work on a lightly-trafficked bike route. Cycling is the sanest form of commuting when it isn't pouring rain.

Palo Alto has a passive-aggressive downtown street parking system. You can park for 2-3 hours at a time with no charge in a several-block zone marked with colored signs. Then, you need to move your car to avoid a $25 fine. So a workday in downtown Palo Alto involves getting up and moving your car every few hours.

They don't make it impossible to park by making sure there are fewer parking spots than people who want to park, like they do in Cambridge. They don't have pirhana towing, like they do in the Boston area, where predatory towtrucks circle timed parking areas and abduct your car to a distant lot where it must be ransomed for an exhorbitant fine. They just make it really annoying.

So far the transportation scheme is working. I've done the hour-long drive to San Francisco and Berkeley twice for fun things, and otherwise had a short and healthy daily commute.

Hotel free wifi

Lately, I've been choosing less fancy hotels with complementary wifi over nicer hotels with similar discount room rates, but add-on charges of $10 - $20 per day for network access. The algorithm worked splendidly, resulting in a number of quite comfortable, moderately priced stays thanks to the Orbitz search engine.

Until this past week, when I stayed at the Guest House International Inn & Suites in Santa Clara.

The bathroom door had a rather disconcerting fist-sized dent, which seemed like the traces of a highly unpleasant visit for someone.

The in-room menu was for the enticingly named "Last Chance Restaurant." Not kidding.

To be fair, the pizza from this ominously named outfit was more edible than the name suggests.

Concentration

Just spent a few hours migrating email from Mozilla to Thunderbird. There's a handy new mbox import utility that helps move the files. This kind of maintenance task isn't hard but takes attention to avoid messing up. Excellent for holiday weekends.

Turtle at Green Muse water garden

Green Muse turtle

Green Muse turtle
Originally uploaded by alevin.

So, the Flickr blog posting feature does post the picture, but generates an error message on Flickr. Also, the default MT template works better than the default Flickr template.

Home office (with digital camera)

So, I finally got a digital camera, and got it working.

Here's a picture of the blogging office at the Green Muse:

It's a sign of the times that the weekend's home maintenance tasks involve replacing the air conditioner filters and upgrading the weblog comment spam filter.

Frequent Flyer Fairness

Heading back from Newark last weekend, at a flight delay in Chicago.

A Southwest Airliness frequent flyer was ranting at the gate clerk, because a clerk at a different gate had told him that he would be first on the standby list for the flight, and he was now #4. American Airlines frequent flyers had bumped ahead of him. Apparently, Southwest does not do this.

Perhaps the first clerk should have read him the fine print. It's something American Airlines customers know. I'm a sucker for it -- I'll pay a bit more for AA flights because I know that as a frequent flyer, if there are delays and overbooked flights, I'll get on the airplane.

Both sets of rules have merit. It doesn't seem like one set of rules is fairer than the next, so long as you know the rules.

p.s. Mr. Irate got on the plane. Apparently so did a number of others on standby.

Caddo Lake

Spent last weekend in northeast Texas on Caddo Lake. Cypress, blue herons, snowy egrets and turtles, it's a landscape that is common in next-door Louisiana but unique in Texas.

We were staying in Uncertain, Texas, a town of about 150 who mostly host tourists or avoid life elsewhere. The town was incorporated in 1961 because people wanted to drink while fishing. The surrounding area was "dry", so a group of households decided to form a town to vote in the ability to drink.

We were hosted by the mayor of Uncertain and his wife; they and friends from the area sat around and told tall tales, in a style that comes from the culture before radio, television, and internet.

Uncertain is about 30 miles south of Atlanta and Queen City, which are unwired by the Northeast Texas Wireless Initiative. Lynn Jones of NETWI joined us for the fish fry.

The region has been a hotbed of city-supported wireless. Underserved by incumbents, they're taking local initiative to bring broadband to town, and were very active in the fight against the Texas municipal network ban.

The mayor of Uncertain was ambivalent about bringing wireless high-speed internet, and I can see why. People come to be off the grid.

The Caddo Lake community been fighting the next town over, Marshall, pop. 25,000 which wants to siphon more water from the lake for a power plant and its growing population. The threat prompted the local people to organize; the conservation movement is championed by Don Henley of Eagles fame, who grew up in nearby Linden TX (another municipal wireless site).

A major water bill, SB3, which would have added protections for "environmental services", preserving water for rivers and estuaries, failed to pass the Texas legislature this past session. It passed the Senate and house committee, but timed out on the last day to be voted on the house floor.

Not ignoring you

If you sent me an email in early November and I haven't answered, I'm not ignoring you. I don't have the message. Please send it again.

Currently I'm getting email, but without the detailed folder-and-filter system on my laptop. If I'm slow to respond, it's because the the email is in a big, tangled, pile of goo. Please resend.

Laptop held hostage

My Fujitsu laptop's in the shop, and the conditions to get it back keep receding off into the future.

When I took it in last week Friday, I thought the problem was the same broken power connection that needed resoldering before. I'd have it back the same day.

Unfortunately, the part itself was broken. Fortunately, they found the $29 part and had ordered it. Unfortunately, the part wasn't actually in stock. Fortunately, there are other suppliers that carry it. Unfortunately, none of those seem to be in stock either. Fortunately, there's a brand new version of the $29 remanufactured part. Unfortunately, it costs $250 just for the part, not counting the labor.

Fortunately, the $250 part seems to be in stock, in theory. Unfortunately, the part comes from Sony, which has a reputation for delivery between the time of order and then end of the universe.

The chances of getting my laptop back before Thanksgiving is receding into improbability.

Fortunately, I have a backup computer -- an ex-laptop from 1999 with a busted screen, replaced by a really cheap desktop monitor. Unfortunately, it's running a crufty, never-rebuilt, highly unstable version of Win98 which crashes about 3x per day.

Fortunately, the ex-laptop would probably be a well-behaved Linux machine. Unfortunately, I'm using it as a primary work box, so I'm not going to run the risk of conversion now.

Fortunately, most of my data is on servers. Unfortunately, there are a few email attachments from last few weeks that aren't on the project workspace.

Fortunately, the shop gave me a cd with the email file. Unfortunately, the drive driver was busted. Fortunately, I was able to reinstall the driver. Unfortunately, their backup didn't have the attachments. So a major weekend project has been at a standstill for two weekends.

Unfortunately, the crappy desktop monitor gives me eyestrain. Fortunately, it's probably healthier to spend less time in front of a computer.

Argh!

Women Don't Ask

Men graduating from Carnegie Mellon with a Masters' degree earned $4000 more in their first job out of the program than women did, according to a 2002 study.

It turned out that only 7% of the women had negotiated their starting salary, but 57% of the men had asked for more money. Those who negotiated raised their salaries by an average of $4000.

The striking difference in salary was explained by the willingness to negotiate.

Currently Women Don't Ask, about women's reluctance to negotiate.

Back from Seattle

The 10 month old nephews are very easy to amuse - funny faces and air-tosses and pokes with stuffed animals and dances to made-up songs bring gales of laughter. The niece, who is 5 going on 6, performs elaborate song and dance routines, plays monster-and-rescue adventures with elaborate checklists before blasting off to save the day, and looks elegant in pink sparkly things.

Ingy gave me a tour of the new Seattle public library, which is just waiting for the movie where the villains chase the heroes across the ledges and levels.

It was a restful weekend away - nice to sleep somewhere you don't have responsibility. Which I guess parents don't get ever.

Pictures

Usually, when I go for a walk in my neighborhood, I wish I had a digital camera to share the pictures. Tonight the images wouldn't have come out on film or pixels, at least with my snapshot skills. The air is steamy, the moon is white and half-hiding behind silver clouds, the live-oaks look shaggy and nearly animated, like their cousins in the wizard of oz and the lord of the rings; and the neighborhood's stage lighting talents are up for awards. Small, yellow footlights along the path above the stairs from streetlevel, lighting the way to the looming white triple decker. Twinkling white strands surround a courtyard, suspended on fences. Yellow living room light glows behind a cavern of bushes. Stray sunflowers grow in stray dirt and rubble in the corner of the street. The globes of the 1930s experimental tower streetlight cast halos against the sky, appear and disappear around corners down the hill.

Some of the chiaroscuro comes from Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, which I've finally gotten around to reading. May blog more about Sandman upon reflection.

Cleaning

Cleaning is an important part of the weekend. As soon as I'm rested enough to think and see, I'll declutter the house and pick something else to clean up.
Blog comment spammers are just another kind of vermin. They evoke the same sort of visceral disgust as ants, roaches, and flies. I just downloaded the latest MTBlacklist and cleaned the comments.

If I had a digital camera

I'd take a picture of the roses that are blooming on the rosebush, the small forest of thriving grass that was mowed in the backyard, which was a muddy desert last winter, (fortunately, the grass in the front yard goes dormant over the winter), and the little white flowers whose names I forget, on the backyard bushes.

I wish I had a gardening mentor who would stop by once a season, give a few tips that I could do and digest, and come back again. Would happily trade for semi-pro editing, career counselling, or dinner.

What's fun about #joiito

I keep the #joiito IRC channel running in the background some chunk of the time, and occasionally join in the conversation

Here's what I like about it:

* makes me laugh. It's an opportunity for pointless silliness. Occasionally, people show up and ask "what is the point of this channel." Occasionally, people talk about "serious topics" and spark real-life projects. Put pointlessness is mostly the point. This is very good, I have way more than enough purpose.

* background noise. Similar reason that I like working and hanging out at the Green Muse. Something about the varied hum, the sense of being in a social space, even as I'm concentrating on something else.

* friendship bookmarks. Don't quite count people I meet there as real friends and colleagues, yet. There's a bit of "unbearable lightness" about IRC on its own -- people can easily come, and easily go. People get mad at something or other, and leave in a huff -- no need to come back, no need to apologize. The measure of realness isn't how often you meet in 3d, it's obligation and reciprocity over time. Reality is taking on some project, or putting someone up in a strange town, or helping in a pinch. The friendship bookmarks are real, though. Enough context over time that reality can happen.

Taxes

have a queue of stuff to blog, which will wait til after I take a crack at taxes.

I am not an ubergeek

This past weekend, I wrote a little IRC bot that posts to a Socialtext Workspace (wiki/blog).

I wrote the bot because we needed it. The Socialtext crew frequently discussses things on IRC, and we often come up with ideas we want to remember, categorize, work more on later. Every so often, Ed Vielmetti changes his nick to STBot, and promises to post an item.

Coding to scratch an itch is classic geekery, but in other aspects, I fall short of the macho ideal.

* I like making something for people to use, and I'm not in love with infrastructure. I am quite glad that co-conspirators and colleagues get their jollies developing meta-levels of abstraction, achieving mathematical elegance, and solving knotty performance problems.

* I'm thrilled to use tools and models from others. The bot uses the Net::IRC framework, an API widget from Pete Kaminski, and models from jibot and elsewhere. I learned enough about how the tools work to use them.

* I like assembling things from piece parts. The ubergeek ideal is building a system from the ground up; reuse is a pragmatic necessity, but a fall from the ideal.

Surrounded by masters of the art, it is a small thing to be pleased by, but it makes me happy anyway. It wanted to exist, and I was able to make it, rather than casting the idea to the lazyweb and waiting.

Response to Halley on Alpha Male

Halley Suitt recently responded to an old comment on Pete Kaminski's blog, explaining that the Alpha Male series was intended ironically.

Trouble was, I've seen and heard enough un-ironic alpha male culture that I honestly couldn't tell. Early in my career, I worked in places that ran on old-fashioned, quid pro promotion sexual harassment. Popular culture has plenty of serious retro "post-feminist" dreck about "real women" and "real men".

I read some of the blog-link fan letters to the original Alpha Male posts, including posts from guys I otherwise like and respect. It was clear that a good number of readers took the series straight.

I hate the idea of admirable, delightful geeky guys missing the irony and acting macho in an attempt to live the alpha male fantasy. I remember one really depressing conversation during the boom, when a male colleague explained that he always wanted to be a teacher, but got an MBA because women would like him better as a high-paid corporate guy. Personally, I thought he'd be more attractive if he had less money and more commitment to his nature and values.

One way to read the series is 50s gender roles as a thrilling way to play with now-forbidden power dynamics. I have no cause to argue with anything that floats the boats of other consenting adults. But playing CEO-seduces-the secretary just doesn't do it for me. Power relations among real humans are complicated enough without 50s gender-role drag.

Decorating a social space

It's interesting to observe the choices one makes de facto. After a very, very busy couple of months, I took the day to a bit of cleaning and social space decoration.

Here was the sequence of choices.
* de-clutter house (done weekly when not daily)
* add full text RSS feeds to blog
* add del.icio.us-based link blog to blog
* assemble reading chair
* small hack adding social feature to Socialtext intranet

Here are the items that haven't gotten done yet (awaiting next clear weekend)
* clear yard
* weed gravel driveway
* change apparently permanent track lighting bulbs in closed porch
* fix leaky faucet

Observations about priorities:
* Uncluttered personal space is important, but less important than deadlines and obligations.
* The blog is a social space that gets shared by more people than the living room.
* The living room, blog, and intranet all occupy similar mental space regarding social decoration
* The living room, blog, and intranet are more actively social than the front yard

Wireless routers and sleepless nights

So, after years of trepidation and procrastination, I bought a wireless router for the house. The ethernet cable was annoying for houseguests and meetings, but it had a very useful feature. It didn't reach the bedroom.

The last time I worked with a distributed team, it was back during dial-up days. The phone cord reached the bedroom. I gave myself sleep problems til I reconfigured the house to have a sleeping area out of sight of the office area, and resolved not to bring the computer into the sleeping area.

So, when you start seeing blogposts and emails and wiki changes at 3-4am, worry for me. An intervention may be in order.

Arizona Day Trip 2

We stopped to see the Sinagua cliffdwellings. A village of 200 people built houses that lasted 600 years after they left. Our "big box" Walmart and CompUSA stores are designed to last 8-15 years.

There was an exhibit of Sinagua artifacts. They made rather ugly pottery, and traded with the Hopi for nice pottery. They also made baskets. The Hopi pottery, and Sinagua baskets were very similar in style to pottery, and baskets, and other southwestern objects. There are shopping malls and office buildings and subdivisions designed in the shape of those cliff-dwellings.

One part cultural appropriation, one part cultural continuity. There's something so compelling about the design patterns that humans replicate them for 1000 years.

Arizona Day Trip 1

Went to Arizona last weekend for a family wedding. On Sunday before the wedding, took a day trip that reminded me why I don't travel with the nuclear family, though I love them dearly.

The travel itinerary is:
* wake up at 6:30 am
* leave before 8
* drive two hours
* get out of the car
* scurry around an attraction for 15 minutes
* get back in the car
* drive
* get out of the car
* scurry around attraction for 15 minutes
* eat food from bag lunches in back seat
* drive
* repeat for another 2-3 attractions
* get back in the car
* drive two hours back to destination.

My parents are doing lots fabulous travel with their post-kids-at-home time, and it makes them sad that I don't go with them.

But I really can't stand it. Hated it as a kid, realized as an adult that you really can travel in a less frenetic fashion, and resolved not to do it again.

New Years Resolutions

Out of all of the goals on the list for 2004, I know how to do all of the items but one.

Made fabulous progress last year in professional and nonprofit activities. I know how to stay fit and eat well, though it's hard to do when working a zillion hours at a start-up. I kept the resolution to stay in touch with friends and keep social commitments, even when really busy. I completed some small but useful programming projects; learned how to build things small steps at a time and debug.

Gosh, I'm even procrastinating getting to the point. I'd love to meet the right guy, and don't know how to do it. So I'd love your advice, dear readers.

There are two methods that people recommend:

Method 1) Have an active life, do things you enjoy, and meet interesting people. Eventually, you'll meet someone who's right for you. Or someone you meet will introduce you.

This method is fun and relatively easy. But sloooow. I met and briefly dated someone through a non-profit connection, who's super-smart, fun and capable; not right for an LTR for me, and we're friends now. That was one guy in a year.

Method 2) Market yourself. First, ask everyone you know to fix you up. This hasn't had any results so far. I guess I can try again...

Next, fill out profiles on the online dating services. Browse profiles and send form letters to plausible-sounding guys. Meet for coffee. The results of this approach have been amusingly disastrous. Outside of "dates", I meet people I like and make new friends all the time. On "dates" with guys selected by profiles, I meet people who are wildly unsuitable -- a guy whose favorite activity is gambling; a guy who wears a concealed handgun at all times; a guy who doesn't wash. Ask me for more amusing stories, if you like.

This isn't fun, and hasn't had any good results so far. So I procrastinate. I put it on my to-do list every single weekend, and lo and behold, do everything else.

Gentle readers:

* Shall I continue to pursue method 1, and trust that the universe will make a connection?

* Or shall I smile sweetly, take a photograph with a tighter sweater, and write more form letters?

Advice welcome.

p.s. If you're a single guy who reads my blog, feel free to drop me a note. Ditto if you know someone I should meet.

p.p.s. So, you ask... why is such a nice girl still single? Dated the same guy for a long time, during my mid-20s/early 30s when most people hook up, and didn't marry him.

people-watching

You can tell the families of tourists. It's not just the sneakers and the cameras. The adults have a dogged, purposeful expression. Just seen attraction two-of-five; three-of-five is next, gotta get our money's worth. The kids look bored unto death.

One of the best parts of travelling is sitting down and watching the guys in greatcoats and chic haircuts, the people loading and unloading, the pathologically thin women in orthopedically crippling shoes. The cops making sure the guy sleeping in the church doorway is sleeping.

Jews on Christmas

Went on the night of the 25th to a performance with several Jewish groups at the Knitting Factory.

The headliners were "What I Like About Jew", a duo who perform goofy comic songs on Jewish themes. "2 pubic hairs and a 3 piece suit/Today I am a man" was one chorus. One of their pieces is the gleefully offensive Hannukah with Monica.

The best musician was Matisyahu a Hassidic Reggae/Dub performer who re-appropriates the Reggae references to Zion and the messiah. Cindy Cohn played sweet folk guitar with sharp-tongued lyrics "who do I need to fuck to get laid around here." Todd Barron did excellent deadpan standup comedy.

It was very enjoyable -- lots of native New York life forms.

Then I got food poisoning from the post-performance dinner, and spent most of the day with barely enough energy to get up. Hopefully will feel better to enjoy more of the trip.

I have intermittent wireless connectivity from the Verizon phonebooth hotspot catty-corner from my host's apartment; if you need to reach me, call my cellphone.

Browsing

More or less taking the day off. This morning, I bought supplies for the NYC trip:

* CD player to listen to music on the airplane
* Gloves, for New York weather
* Battery for cellphone

Hmmm.... coulda gotten good headphones and power adapter for the laptop instead. Didnt' think of it.

Being Jewish, I'm exempt from the frenzy of rushing and shopping (talk to me before Passover). The fun is in browsing, without a tight deadline, to-do-lists, and consequences.

For folks who celebrate Christmas, have a very merry. And a happy vacation to all.

Thankgiving

Didn't get my act together to travel, which worked out well.

Attended a lovely Thanksgiving dinner party with fantastic food and interesting conversation, hung out with a friend in from out of town, can see the bottom of my email inbox, have a stocked fridge and an uncluttered house, caught up by phone with lots of family and friends, had a chance to give thoughtful responses to several book recommendations.

I'm imagining the sheer overwhelmedness of coming back from a weekend away to a messy house, an empty fridge, a thousand emails, and a dozen little stacked up unfulfilled obligations.

Worked out quite nicely.

Back in Boston (2)

This weekend, I've been staying with friends in Somerville, meeting their four-month old baby, who has a charming smile, squeaks like a mousie, and falls asleep to James Brown and Stevie Wonder.

Reading their their books (Emerson Among the Eccentrics).

Receiving visitors on the porch, in the 59 degrees damp chill, because our friends are deathly allergic to the resident cat. (Ah, Spring in New England).

In Jamaica Plain, getting a photo tour of a trip to Kyoto (elegant pictures of cherry blossoms, gardens, and temples; grisly tales of vengeance and treachery.)

For folks who don't know, I lived in Somerville between 1987 and 1999.

Email overload

This weekend, I'm clearing out 1200 messages in my inbox, accrued over the last 3 weeks, not counting spam and items already filed or deleted. One distributed start-up company, three non-profit affiliations, attempts to defeat the same bad law in several states, and three social/political mailing lists. All of this adds up to a truckload of mail, much of it interesting and relevant if not immediately urgent.

The "organize-yourself" books tell you to act upon or file each incoming message when it comes in.

Some messages are urgent -- they relate to a current project or a customer and require an immediate response. When they come in, I think about them, make a decision, and put them away.

Other messages are less urgent. They're about a conference in a month. They contain links to interesting-looking articles. They have an interesting-sounding conversational idea. They stay in the inbox.

I don't have enough attention to think about every interesting idea that crosses my email box at the time.

What do you do? Do you have enough attention to deal with every piece of email every day? Are you bold enough to delete things that you didn't have attention for that day?

What did you like about the seder? What did you learn?

Judith's astonishing hand-dipped chocolate-covered strawberries. Judith keeps trying to attribute credit to the high quality of the choclate. As if the strawberries decided, on their own, to leap into a bowl of chocolate, which, on its own, decided to melt.

Hearing the four questions asked by Hannah, who is 2.5 years old, abominably mischievous, and clever.

Betsy's question about personal expererience of Dayenu: which good things in life would we appreciate, even if they were not accompanied by other good things.

Dan observes that Haggadah has to tell you which team to root for. He notes that most of the Egyptian soldiers drowned in the Red Sea were probably conscripts.

Reading about the seder's origins in the form of the Greco-Roman symposium, including multiple courses accompanied by wine, vegetable hors d'oevres, reclining posture, prepared questions, and counting things as a conversational gambit (Four Sons, Four Cups of Wine).

Judith quotes R. Nachman, via A Night of Questions. When you are about to leave Egypt -- Any Egypt -- do not stop to think: "but how will I make a living out there?" One who stops to "make provisions for the way" will never get out of egypt.

Learning the terms for male body parts in sign language, at varying levels of formality and politeness. (You had to be there).

Betsy's skill at abbreviating with spirit.

Judith's long and eventually successful quest for wine glasses; Dan's long and eventually successful quest for the Passover food processor.

Cooking and schmoozing with Judith and Dan (the reason to have a good-sized kitchen with multiple countertops).

Will post if I remember more.

What about you?

Passover, culture-hacking, and the DMCA

"Whoever elaborates in telling the story of the exodus from Egypt is to be well-praised."

The tradition of the seder is to retell the story, interpreting it in a some way that comes alive for the participants.

* political
* psychological
* dramatic
* exegetical
* musical

With cheap printing, photocopying, and now internet connections, there's a new tradition of compiling custom Haggadahs.

Humans interpret and remake culture. That's what we do to make life interesting and meaningful.

Except (under the current US legal scheme), where a few people have copyrights on the myths of our culture, can extend those copyrights forever, and can prosecute people who want to share and modify their culture.

Imagine if the Rabbis took a copyright on the Haggadah, and the copyright was extended forever.

Passover's a festival of liberation.

Next year, free culture.

Have a happy and creative holiday.

Filed taxes electronically

for the first time, yesterday.

I'd always thought the $15 fee was a ripoff. But this year, it was cheaper and faster than getting my printer fixed or slogging over to Kinkos.

Worked just fine.

New startup!

As you might have guessed from the topics of conversation, I've been working on a start-up in the social software space. There's a tremendous amount of innovation in the public internet, using tools like weblogs and wikis. We're bringing these to corporations behind the firewall.

The pattern of adoption feels like the early PC era -- champions discover a new set of simple tools bring them to the workplace, under the radar of central IT and corporate purchasing.

The first version of the SocialText website is here.

The team is fantastic -- some folks I've admired for years -- smart, competent, experienced, nice people. The group is distributed -- Ross and Pete in the Bay Area, Ed in Ann Arbor, and sometimes Greg in NY.

We stay in touch by phone, email, and IM, and collaborate largely by wiki, which is egregiously fun. It feels like improvising together on a whiteboard, except you're not in the same place at the same time, you have a document draft when you're done, and you're building a knowledgebase as you go.

If you have any questions, feel free to send me an email (contact info in sidebar at right), and I'll be happy to tell you more about it.

Weekend in Florida

It was a good bat mitzvah. On Friday night, after dinner, the bat mitzvah girl spoke to mixed-seated-group in the Orthodox synagogue sanctuary, saying something meaningful about the weekly Torah portion, citing several medieval commentaries, and thanking her parents, friends, and teachers. Her mom gave a talk. The Rabbi ended his speech with the blessing that the girl should grow up to become "a leader in Israel."

They didn't say and do such things in Orthodox synagogues when I was bat mitvah age!

On Friday, we visited a small, beautiful reconsitituted wetland which holds storm waters and houses local creatures: ducks and herons and anhinga and swallows; turtles, frogs, and lounging alligators; citidwellers strolling on a boardwalk; young couples with children visiting grandma and grandpa; intent people with binoculars and the names of all the birds; intent people with military telescopes on tripods waiting for bobcats (they spotted one while we were there).

Had some travel-related misadventures involving lost rental car keys that ended well. The highlight was watching my parents cope with said misadventures with calmness, aplomb, assertiveness, creativity, and the occasional strategically effective tantrum in dealing with braindead people and processes at Budget Car Rental. My parents have matured tremendously in later adulthood.

Had a good time with various relatives, and returned to Austin without trouble (see airplane reading.)

Traveling

Going to Florida for my neice's Bat Mitzvah, and whirlwind Everglades trip with family.

Back Sunday.

- Adina

Seattle

I'm heading off to Seattle to spend time with the family. For those of you who celebrate Christmas, have a happy and peaceful Christmas. For everyone else in countries that take Christmas as a holiday, have a very merry vacation.

Mezuzahs

Six months after moving into the house, I finally put mezuzahs on most of the doors (I put a mezuzah by the front door when I moved in). Mezuzahs are small cases holding a scroll of parchment with Torah verses. The custom is to place them on the right side of doorways heading into a room.

Mezuzot on the doors are supposed to remind you of the presence of God and the commandments. Which sounds like it might be grim, but it isn't, it's joyful. For example, in each room, I tried to think about the different good things I would get to do in the rooms -- hospitality in the front room, cooking tasty food for guests and healthy food for me in the kitchen, study and reading in the library, enjoying the garden on the deck.

The house has a LOT of doors. The entry way has an outside door and door to the enclosed porch. The kitchen opens onto the dining room and sitting room. The library opens onto the front room and the hall. The bedroom opens onto the hall and the deck. I have never needed this number of mezuzahs before.

My parents very generously gave me a set of large, beautiful, expensive scrolls, along with a set of trasparent lucite holders with the world's worst industrial design. The bottom of the holders has a plastic plug that screws in, to keep the scroll clean and dry.

The plug has holes drilled through it that are supposed to align with holes in the case when you rotate it to the right orientation. But the plug is not perforated all the way through. You need to bang a nail through 1/4" of hard plastic, while trying to keep the plug from sliding along the screw treads and misaligning the holes. Or try to drill through the plastic (same problems). Or simply unscrew the plug, put the nail through the holes in the case, and think about spiders nesting in your mezuzah cases.

The mezuzah case I had put at the front door when I moved in was one that my friend Joan had given me. It was wood that she had carved herself. She had said that it was not protected, and shouldn't be used outdoors, but it was the only one that I thought I had (I actually found another one today), so I put it up temporarily when I moved in. Now it is discolored, and sitting in a closet shelf. Sorry Joan.

this post made me teary.

this post made me teary.

The hardest part of my job...

is distinguishing between black and navy blue in early mornings and dark closets.

The sun's out but I'm working indoors anyway

There are a bunch of hands-on household tasks that I'd rather be doing; planting cool-weather flowers; blowing leaves off the garden plots, picking a few yellow leaves off the rosebush installing the new filter in the hot tub (which I still haven't sold); some necessary vermin-prevention (you don't want to know); fixing the plastic cover I broke on one of the closet fluorescent light fixtures (want to cut the sheet of plastic in the daylight, on the deck).

But I promised some documents for review this weekend. So I'm looking at the sun outside the window, watching leaves blow on the laurel, and getting to work. Really.

Shul

Woke up in time to go to synagogue on Saturday morning, though I didn't get there quite on time. Today was one of those Saturdays when I really only feel awake after an afternoon nap.

The minyan was held at the building of the non-denominational synagogue, with some members of that congregation. The rabbi, who was trained reform, is reaching out to the traditional-egalitarian minyanim, and they are holding joint services with us once a month.

The highlight of the service happened during Torah-reading, when the 2.5 year old daughter of some friends started to lug a chair toward the center of the room (people watched, and didn't stop her yet). She moved the chair over to the bima, where her father had received an aliya. Then she climbed up on the chair, and watched curiously as the adults gathered around the scroll and the reader read.
Her father was anxious and moved to take her down, but the minyan organizer and the rabbi, who were reading and gabbai-ing, respectively, motioned to let her stay.

Hanna is very clever and energetic and mischievous. She drives her parents bananas.

Glossary:
aliya -- being called to recite blessings for the Torah reading
bima -- altar. A table in the center of the room, where the torah scroll is placed when it is being read. Taller than the line of sight of a 2.5 year old.
gabbai -- the person who calls the stage-directions for the Torah-reading.
minyan -- prayer-community, with a quorum of at least 10 adult Jews
shul -- synagogue

Jogging

About 9:30 pm. It was damp, about 50. I love running in cool weather. I've been doing the Rodney Yee yoga tape several times a week and then running/swimming occasionally. Happy that I can still do the Stacy Park run (1.5-2 mi) without stopping. Basic fitness is good.

I ran the way back on the street. There are trees every 20 feet or so. When you're getting tired, you just run to each next tree. Should avoid the Stacy Pool parking lot after dark; can't imagine any good reason why folks would park there at 9:30 pm.

Christmas lights: between Little Stacy Park and Riverside, the houses are up on a hill looking down on the creek. One house has a small pine tree all lit up, about storey high overlooking the street. Further up the street, some folks just wrapped a couple of live oak branches in lights. Either lazy or abstract. At the corner of East Monroe and Live Oak, there are foot high letters made of mini-lights, spelling out "peace on earth". Which is meaningful every year but especially this year when folks are preparing war in our name.

I used to feel crowded by Christmas lights. This is pretty common for Jews; in a country that's majority culturally Christian, the assumption is that everyone celebrates Christmas; the ubiquitous decorations, music, and holiday wishes feel intrusive. After having dated a Catholic guy for years, I appreciate them. I can translate them now.

Christmas music in retail stores still makes me want to shoot out the speakers.

midday walk...

cloudy, chilly, damp.

the leaves on the ground are red and yellow.
the new grass is blue-green.
sky is mottled gray.
stacy creek chortles, the kids on recess run and shriek

Ed's mobile office rating guide

from Ed Vielmetti's Vacuum email list

In thinking about how to find places to carry on my daily work, I started composing a rating guide for the mobile office location for the
telecommuter. This involves the key technologies of

- wireless Internet on your laptop
0 stars: no signal
1/4 star: pay-per-use rental computers
1/2 star: pay-per-use wireless; free computers
1 star: free wireless with strong signal

- a mobile phone, and a place to talk on it
0 stars: no signal
1/4 star: signal, but no place to talk - too noisy or too quiet
1/2 star: signal, a place to talk, but no door to keep private
1 star: signal and a door to shut, or a wireline phone and same

- Kinko's services (print, photocopy, office supply)
0 stars: nothing, and nothing nearby
1/4 star: you know where to go to, but it's inconvinent
1/2 star: within walking distance, or local but incomplete
1 star: more copy, fax, print tools than you know how to use

- coffee, tea, or other convivial snacks
0 stars: you go hungry
1/4 star: institutional burnt black coffee
1/2 star: your own kitchen, or a place to snack sans atmosphere
1 star: a place to hang out with comfy couches and people around

- power outlets
0 stars: none to be found
1/4 star: only for the floor polishing machines
1/2 star: at some places to sit, but not many, or not enough
1 star: one seat, one power outlet

- books
0 stars: only the ones you carry on your back
1/4 star: a smattering of resume how-tos and business best sellers
1/2 star: a store or library or good personal collection
1 star: a major research library or exceptional special collection

No one organization that I know of offers all of these in one place. E.g.

The library. Our library is working on mobile wireless, and has lots of public use computers (1/2 *), but there are very few places you can engage in phone calls without bothering someone (0 *). There are copiers but no office supplies (1/2 *), no food and beverages allowed (0 *), but plenty of power (1 *) and more reference and popular books than you'd ever be able to read (1 *). Total rating: 3 of 6.

Kinko's. These vary more widely than I'd like, and no particular store is guaranteed to have them all. Generally there's at least a for-pay computer but sometimes you can get full internet via the printer stations (1/4 - 1 *). Your co-workers will notice if you're on the phone (1/2 *), but there are office supplies and copiers galore (1 *). The beverage selection is almost always utilitarian and office-spartan (1/4 *). Power is readily available (1 *) but the only books you will find are
motivational and self-help (1/4 *). Total: 3-4 of 6.

Your favorite coffee shop. My favorite is Cafe Ambrosia, which has no Internet at the moment (0 *) but makes up for it by having power outletsat every table (1 *). Phone calls are expected (1 *), there's good coffee and even comfy couches to sit on (1 *). It's within a short walk of a Kinko's (1/2 *) and Borders #1 (1/2 *) so the lack of books and copiers on site are easily made up for in a pinch. Total: 4 of 6.

My home office. Good internet (1 *), decent power though I need another power strip (1/2 *). Exceptionally good place to make or take phone calls (1 *). The kitchen is downstairs, but it's self-service, and convivial is not really the way to describe the office -- there's no way you could have a four person meeting here (1/2 *). Getting copies made is a pain (1/4 * - could be improved with investment). As for books, there are lots of books here, but not always the specialized reference or brand new books that I can get downtown; give 1/2 * for the library, and another 1/4 * for the #5 bus that takes 10 minutes to get downtown where the books live. Total: 4 of 6, with notes for improvement that would add 1 more star almost all the way to 6 except for "convivial".

A day without even a short walk is a wasted day

says euan semple

A new office -- Ruta Maya's in the neighborhood

Ruta Maya just opened on Thursday in my neighborhood. That's a Central-American themed coffee importer, coffee house, music venue and all around hangout.

For those of you in Austin, it's on South Congress in a strange, artsy-hip new professional office park, behind, of all places, the Expose strip club.

Now I need to get a wireless card, and I'll have a coffee-shop office, which I've been missing in Austin ever since my favorite coffee place at 7th and Neches shut down. High Life was run by a husband and wife team. She was the head barista and she put artistry into coffee drinks. I can still taste their coffee. He ran the kitchen. Interesting stuff by local artists always on the walls. They left a couple of years ago to follow their dream to open a bed and breakfast in New Mexico. My IQ has gone down 20 points and personal productivity has plummeted since they closed; I used to go there weekend mornings to reflect and write and plan the week.

Even when I have a permanent office workplace, I go to coffee shops to sit, think, and write. There's something about caffeine and background music that helps focus and concentration.

When I worked in a mostly-virtual team from the Boston area, my favorite office was TeaTray in the Sky, in Porter Square, Cambridge. The name comes from a quote in Alice in Wonderland; they had surreal Alice murals painted on the walls, teas from around the world, really good coffee, expensive but yummy food and desserts, and a secret wall phone jack (this was pre-WiFi). One of the owners had been a pastry chef at Biba's which was one of Boston's best restaurants.

In my neighborhood in Austin, Jo's and Bouldin have the bohemian atmosphere but to be honest, average coffee and average food. Jo's was built 3 years ago in classic Austin neo-roadside-shack style; the seating area is open-air, with plastic sheeting for rain and chill. The chairs are too short for the tables (for a 5'6" person) and the tables and chairs rattle. No power supply. It's nice when the weather is wonderful. Bouldin is genuine, South-Austin hippie, with games and ratty paperback books on the shelves, and a veggie-brunch menu. I wish they had better coffee. South Lamar Starbucks has drinkable coffee and usable chairs. But it's Starbucks.

The Mad Bird opened up this year on South Congress, as an extension to a garden/landscape story. It is genuinely and delightfully odd; the back deck looks onto the plants display. Last spring, I watched a hummingbird hover around the flowers while working on a presentation over coffee and a sandwich.

A bit further away on Barton Springs, Flipnotics has good coffee and an Austin casual-hipster vibe. Mozart's has a gorgeous view of the river, good coffee (they roast), mediocre, overpriced pastries, and a frat-child clientele. Mozart's is my favorite date-screening location, and has been the site of plenty of unspeakably bad dates. Ask me in person if you really and truly want to know.

I'm just thrilled that Ruta Maya's in the neighborhood. Next posts will be made with music in the background, good coffee and strange art on the walls.

Travelling and offline for the weekend

see y'all next week.

Links of Thanksgiving

Tim Bratcher

Successful cooking experiment

LENTILS WITH BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND WALNUTS, from Epicurious

I tripled the recipe to serve a larger group. The cookbook says the recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less; if you need to make more, leave more time for all of the chopping. Also, I microwaved the squash til it was easy to peel and slice, and then combined the first two cooking steps.

1 small butternut squash (about 1 pound)
1 large shallot
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 cup walnuts (substituted tamari almonds)
1/3 cup lentils
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro sprigs
fresh lime juice to taste

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Halve, peel, and seed squash and cut into 1/2-inch pieces. Finely chop shallot and in a shallow baking pan toss with squash, oil, curry powder, and salt and pepper to taste until combined well. Bake squash mixture in middle of oven until almost tender, about 15 minutes.

Chop walnuts and sprinkle over squash. Bake squash mixture 10 minutes more, or until walnuts are lightly toasted and squash is tender.

While squash is baking, in a saucepan of boiling water cook lentils until just tender but not falling apart, about 20 minutes. Drain lentils in a sieve and transfer to a bowl.

To lentils add squash mixture, cilantro, lime juice, and salt and pepper to taste and toss until combined well.

Serves 2 as a side dish.

Gourmet
January 1999

Fellow lizard fan

Fellow lizard fan

The Airline of the Dalai Lama

Check out the list of titles in this British Airways registration form. It is too funny.

They serve people from many regions and cultures with different languages (Herr, Fraulein, Monsieur, Sheikh). There are special needs, such as serving Muslims on pilgrimage (Alhaji).

England is a class-conscious society, so they probably had customers wanting to register with their social and military titles. I can just see the secretary for some elderly Baron or Viscountess dressing down some poor BA functionary for not listing the correct title. I can see some web programmer throwing their hands up in despair, getting a book of titles, and including every last one.

Besides, the Pope and the Dalai Lama do fly fairly frequently with retinues. The field for "His Holiness" has probably been used.

We're looking for people who have almost everything

Please accept the most luxurious edition of Moby Dick ever published, for just $5.95! (Regularly $39.95)

Leather-bound and accented with pure 22-carat gold.

Imagine this Luxurious Volume on Your Library Shelves,
ADINA LEVIN
----

At a holiday party at the home of an executive, I once saw an astonishing library. Two full stories of shelves lined with books, with a rotating ladder to reach the upper shelves. The books were bound in leather, carefully arranged by color and height.

Lawn mower wisdom

This past summer I purchased a lawn mower for the first time in my life.

Like other acts of homage to the spirits of hardware, the search for a lawn mower was a learning experience.

At first I considered a manual mower. I don't have that much grass, I don't have big hills -- it seemed like the simplest solution.

I hadn't realized that manual lawnmowers had evolved from utilitarian garden implements to totems of yuppie nostalgia and sentimental patriotism.

Lawn mower of the past

Then I read that manual lawnmowers tend get stuck on twigs; and they can't cut grass if it gets more than 5 inches high. So I looked further....

And found that advanced technology now can automate the lawnmowing process completely. You buy a little, round, red or yellow Pacman-like robot You install a wire around the edge of the lawn. The robot lawnmower then buzzes around the grass, munching away within the wire perimeter. They haven't worked out the bugs yet -- the algorithm doesn't cut evenly and hit has some trouble with bumps and sticks. And it costs a bit more than I wanted to spend. So I searched on.

Lawn mower of the future

And I discovered that cutting the grass was no simple yard chore. Mowing the lawn is an opportunity to transcend the life of this world, and commune with the world of the spirit.

Lawn mower of the world to come

While I steeped myself in lawnmower lore and learning, I borrowed a gasoline mower from some friends to mow the lawn before the yard turned into a jungle. It was loud. It was smelly. And it was too heavy for me to lift.

I finally settled on the prosaic, best-selling Black-and-Decker electric mower from Amazon.com. It's quiet. It won't explode. I can easily move it up and down stairs.

Lawn mower of the present

Yoga videos

Just had a really nice time with this Ali McGraw yoga video, with Erich Schiffman as the teacher. I use props for some of the standing poses, and am a lot less flexible than the beautiful people getting sand in their toes and their tights in the White Sands Desert. I was able to concentrate, rather than to wish each pose would finish as soon as possible. Four years ago this tape seemed completely impossible. I've also been enjoying Rodney Yee's power yoga for strength, which is labeled for beginners but isn't, as the Amazon comments tend to say. As strength training, much prefer this to lifting weights. Lifting weights is dull, and yoga is not dull because of the concentration.

I can't help but think sarcastic thoughts when the teachers get schmaltzy. When the Yoga teacher to the Hollywood stars says, "surrender completely, love is what you have when there is nothing left" -- I mentally translate "give me all of your money, and savor the feeling of inner peace." If anybody knows that Erich Schiffman is really not, on some level, a phony, please let me know and I'll stop making fun of him.

Combine Eastern spirituality with Eastern European Jewish guilt and Misnagnish disdain for spiritual exhibitionism, and I feel kind of awkward and guilty writing about yoga practice. The Austin weather forecast calls for thunderstorms; if the house is hit by lightning I'll know what happened.

Why girls don't like computer games

Here's an interesting explanation for why most girls don't like computer games, backed up by experience and research. And it's not just that "boys like shooting; girls like shopping."

Girls tend to find repetitive shoot-em-ups boring. Girls like solving puzzles more than competing, and enjoy reaching goals rather than scoring points.

This explanation sounds plausible and certainly resonates for me.

Tree trimming

There are guys outside pruning the very big trees that shade my house. They climb the trees with ropes, looking something like Tarzan, but fully clothed and carrying chainsaws. The hyperlink has a picture.

Offering a full line of enlightenment(TM) products

From the schedule of a new Yoga studio in the neighborhood:

* Yoga lifestyle clothing by Puma
* Pure Ayurvedic Skincare developed by Christy Turlington and Partners
* Herbal Products to awaken your Yoga

..... in other words, clothes, makeup, and perfume to help everyone else
recognize the state of your inner enlightened being.

Rice-cookers and self-knowledge

I just burned a pot of rice.

Several years ago, I purchased a rice cooker, because I always, invariably, without fail, burn rice on a stove.

This morning, I went to cook some rice and realized the rice cooker needed cleaning. So I put rice and water in a pot, heated to boil, turned down the heat, and went off to make a couple of phone calls & emails. And Voila. Fortunately, the kitchen has a heat detector but no smoke detector. We'll see if I've trashed the very nice, gift Calphalon pot.

One of the benefits of being an adult is that you know your own strengths and weaknesses, and can compensate with workarounds. Then, every once in a while, you ignore old lessons...

Back from the road

I'm back from several weeks on the road, visiting friends and family. Bunches of posts are in the queue...

The smallest houseguest

A very little lizard scampered into my house one day when I opened the
door to the deck. If it can feed itself on things it finds indoors, it's
doing me a favor, so I haven't chased it away. It looks brown on the
hardwood molding, mottled on the berber carpet, and albino in the
bathtub. I shoo it from the bathtub if I want bath privileges.

Gravity Alert!

Warning! Personal Injury Hazard

Use care if vacuum cleaner is placed on stairs. If it falls, personal
injury or property damage could result.

Owner's Manual, Kenmore Vacuum Cleaner Model 116.304.12