After fourteen trips down and up six stories to get three loads of laundry done, I really wish that they’d just go ahead and get the damn elevator in this place fixed.
iTunes: \”Alright*\” by Lizette & from the album & So… (2001, 4:25).
Personal
The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.
Geek backlash
It was bound to happen eventually. It actually probably started happening a few years ago, but now it’s actually getting news stories — ‘geeks’ are tired of fixing people’s problems.
As MyDoom, the fastest-spreading virus ever, continues to clog e-mail in-boxes and disrupt business, the computer-savvy are becoming openly hostile toward the not-so-savvy who unwittingly play into the hands of virus writers.
The tension over the MyDoom virus underscores a growing friction between technophiles and what they see as a breed of technophobes who want to enjoy the benefits of digital technology without making the effort to use it responsibly.
The virus spreads when Internet users ignore a basic rule of Internet life: never click on an unknown e-mail attachment. Once someone does, MyDoom begins to send itself to the names in that person’s e-mail address book. If no one opened the attachment, the virus’s destructive power would never be unleashed.
“It takes affirmative action on the part of the clueless user to become infected,” wrote Scott Bowling, president of the World Wide Web Artists Consortium, expressing frustration on the group’s discussion forum. “How to beat this into these people’s heads?”
I’ve always counted myself somewhat lucky in this regard. I owe a lot of my geek leanings towards my parents (specifically, my mom, in a somewhat unusual reversal of sterotype), and while I’ve surpassed them in my knowledge base, I can generally rest assured that they’re quite competent enough to avoid many of the more obvious “duh” issues on their own. If they run into something that they can’t solve on their own, while they’re not above tossing a quick question my way to see if it’s something I can solve quickly, they also don’t mind if it’s something that they need to seek “official” assistance with.
The majority of my friends tend to either be at least as computer-literate as I am (if not more so), or at the other extreme, avoiding those infernal machines at all costs. Those few that are in the middle ground — well, if they’re friends with me, they’re likely friends with a lot of other ‘puter geeks at the same time, and will rapidly discover that they have no excuse for incompetence. ;)
That said, though, I’ve certainly seen the backlash coming. One of the big benefits I’ve found to being a Mac user is ducking tech support issues. While I know that I know my way around Windows, when I do get the occasional “why won’t this work?” question from acquaintances or co-workers, it’s very easy to just assume a befuddled expression, mumble something about being a smug virus-free mac-using bastard, toss in a few pointed comments about Windows stability, and go on my merry little way.
(via Jacqueline)
iTunes: “Blue Nun, The” by Beastie Boys, The from the album Check Your Head (1992, 0:32).
Caucus Time
Woke up this morning and went across the street to today’s Democratic Caucus for my precinct at the Town Hall. At first Town Hall looked oddly quiet, but after Prairie (coming along as an observer) and I saw the signs on the front door telling us to go downstairs, we walked into a room packed practically wall-to-wall with caucusgoers, and figured we were in in the right place after all.
Overall, it was in interesting, if somewhat confusing experience. There were probably around fifteen different precincts all gathering in the same room, and from what the moderator of the whole thing was saying, apparently there was a far greater turnout than had been expected — I’d estimate that there were around 300-400 people there. While this is a great thing to see (in some ways, I’m actually more interested in the final turnout numbers from all the various caucuses and primaries than I am in who actually gets the nomination), it did make for a fairly crowded and noisy process.
My particular precinct had twenty-four people show up, split roughly 2/3 for Kerry and 1/3 for Dean, which ended up being the final delegate split (two delegates for Kerry and one for Dean). I’m expecting that that was probably the rough result for the rest of the precincts in the room — as Prairie and I were looking around, we guessed that the average age was somewhere in the mid-40’s or so, with most of the younger people and senior citizens supporting Dean, and the majority of the 35-50 year old attendees supporting Kerry. There were, of course, assorted Edwards and Kucinich supporters visible, but I didn’t see much evidence of support for any of the other candidates.
I was somewhat amused by the moderator, though. During his “here’s what’s going on and how we’re going to do it” speech and Q-and-A session, he occasionally had to cite examples of what would be done if one candidate didn’t have enough support to gain any delegates. When he’d give an example, he’d semi-randomly choose candidate’s names for the situation, and I noticed that Dean was used as an example most often. Kerry, Kucinich, and Lieberman were also used, but neither Clark nor Edwards made an appearance at all. Some (un?)intentional editorializing, perhaps? I doubt it really made that much of a difference, if any, but it was enough to catch my ear.
We didn’t stick around enough to see if any final numbers from all the gathered precincts were announced. While we’d originally planned to do just that, our precinct was one of the first to finish the process and select delegates, and then they moved on to proposing resolutions to be supported. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself, of course, and it’s part of the process, but when we noticed that the conversation at the table had suddenly moved to debating the wall between Palestine and Israel, we decided we’d go ahead and duck out and just get the final results off the web later in the day. I don’t know much about that particular issue, but I know enough to know that it tends to get very heated very quickly, and it seemed to us to be a good time to leave.
And that was that. I cast my vote for Dean, and helped him get one more delegate for the next round in May. I’ll keep an eye on the results as they come in to see where things ended up statewide over the course of the day.
iTunes: “Skinthieves” by Moodswings from the album Moodfood (1992, 6:08).
Suit measurements?
My brother has very kindly offered to get me a suit for his wedding next weekend (and he just asked me to be best man!). This should be pretty cool, as I haven’t had a suit in years…but now I need to get myself measured.
Anyone in Seattle know of a place in the downtown/First Hill/Capitol Hill area that I could go get measured for a suit without having to buy one? Or, failing that, what measurements are generally needed so I could do it myself? I’m quite clueless in these matters.
iTunes: “Ultimo Imperio” by Atahualpa from the album Techno-Trax Vol. 1 (1991, 6:32).
The MS Mac BU
Last Friday, the Seattle P-I ran a nice story on the Macintosh Business Unit at Microsoft, which included a photo of some of the Mac BU staffers seated in front of racks of Mac computers. I read it and appreciated it, but at the time, I didn’t give it much more thought.
Today, Todd Bishop points out that a few other readers drew some amusingly suspicious conclusions based on the fact that the computers in the photo were older model G3’s, and not new G5’s…
One person who e-mailed raised the issue of the Microsoft contract worker who was fired after posting a photo of new PowerMac G5s arriving on campus. The e-mailer put that situation together with the newspaper photo and theorized that Microsoft was trying to hide the fact that it had bought new G5s. He asked if the company prevented the P-I from taking the photo in front of any G5s.
Amusing as this is…sorry, folks, nothing so dastardly!
I hate to dispel a good conspiracy theory, but in fact, we were given a full tour of the test lab — which includes PowerMac G5s and basically every other Mac ever made, as I described in this post last week. P-I photographer Phil Webber could have taken the photo wherever he wanted, but the G3s provided a more colorful background than the metallic G5s would have.
I was always a little bummed that I never did find a way to wander my way through the Mac BU during my time on the MS campus. Microsoft or no Microsoft, just being around that much Mac history (both computers and software — remember, much as we love to hate them, Microsoft has been a major Mac supporter and software supplier since the Mac’s introduction) and Mac fans could have been a lot of fun, even if it were just for a tour or walkthrough.
It may be a bit late for me to peek in their doors now, though. ;)
Todd also mentioned something else that gave me a laugh — when Slashdot posted a link to the Seattle P-I’s article, a couple commenters decided to exercise their funny…
Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit: An anonymous reader writes “Today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an interesting piece on the folks who work at the Mac Business Unit for Microsoft.”
andih8u: They make software for macs and have a mac business unit. I hope someone can get some shots of macs being unloaded from a truck.
wed128: Nah…that might reveal the location of one of microsoft’s unloading platforms…any employee would be fired for an offense so great…
Happy Blogaversary!
Congrats to Kirsten on her one-year “blogaversary”, complete with spiffy new site design!
iTunes: “Toyz 1988” by Sausage from the album Riddles are Abound Tonight (1994, 5:50).
Teaching? Technical writing?
Every so often, a topic pops up in the TypePad User Group forums that I feel I can add my own particular little brand of insight into, and I’ll spend some time doing my best to explain (often in excruciating detail) what’s going on. I recently got a very nice comment from Doc in response to one such post.
…another excellent description. Are you sure there’s not a bit of teacher in you someplace?
The funny thing is that over the years, I’ve gotten quite a few comments along those lines from many friends of mine, and I’ve started considering the possibility of pursuing getting a teaching degree ~~if~~ [when]{.underline} I manage to get back into school. It’s always flattering to get comments like Doc’s that indicate that this might not be an entirely unrealistic goal.
Another direction I sometimes toss around in my head is technical writing. I’ve come up with quite a few different ‘how-to’ or explanatory posts (quite a few of which are archived here) over time, and I’ve always enjoyed writing them out. There’s a definite satisfaction to being able to take a somewhat obscure concept (such as printer stylesheets, title attributes, or [dealing with blockquote tags]) and finding a way to present it clearly (if not always concisely) so that it can be more easily understood.
As long as I enjoy writing and have an apparent knack for things like this, I sometimes think that getting into technical writing — how-to’s, manuals, documentation, and the like — could be a very interesting way to make a living. Programmers and technicians can often come up with some wonderful applications and devices, but often can’t explain how or why they work as successfully as could be done. I can’t program to save my life, but if I have an ability to come up with decently-crafted explanations, why not explore that a bit?
Of course, I haven’t got the foggiest idea of how to get started, or even how to go about investigating the possibility. Still, it keeps kicking around in my head, so maybe one of these days I’ll stumble upon a direction to go in.
iTunes: “Eastern Promise (Dub Pistols vs. Bow Wow Wow)” by Bow Wow Wow from the album Groove Radio Presents Alternative Mix (1999, 4:08).
One more mention
I need to set up a “fifteen minutes” category…
New York Post: YOU’RE FIRED!
Last October, Michael Hanscom had a job with Microsoft and a blog. Then he posted a photo he’d taken – at work, of a delivery of Macintosh computers – alongside the comment, “It looks like somebody over in Microsoft land is getting some new toys.”
Within days, he was left only with the blog.
(via Anil Dash)
Welcome, Katya!
Many congratulations to Casey and Jennifer, who became the proud parents of Katarina Anne Scott on the 19th!
iTunes: “One” by Die Krupps from the album Cyber Core Compilation (1994, 5:01).
He’s a killer! With nasty, sharp, pointy teeth!
You’d think they could have found a better picture for this story…
(via Prairie)
[clop clop clop]
[whinny whinny]
GALAHAD:
They’re nervous, sire.
ARTHUR:
Then we’d best leave them here and carry on on foot. Dis-mount!
TIM:
Behold the cave of Caerbannog!
ARTHUR:
Right! Keep me covered.
GALAHAD:
What with?
ARTHUR:
W– just keep me covered.
TIM:
Too late!
[dramatic chord]
ARTHUR:
What?
TIM:
There he is!
ARTHUR:
Where?
TIM:
There!
ARTHUR:
What, behind the rabbit?
TIM:
It is the rabbit.
ARTHUR:
You silly sod!
TIM:
What?
ARTHUR:
You got us all worked up!
TIM:
Well, that’s no ordinary rabbit!
ARTHUR:
Ohh.
TIM:
That’s the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!
ROBIN:
You tit! I soiled my armour I was so scared!
TIM:
Look, that rabbit’s got a vicious streak a mile wide! It’s a killer!
GALAHAD:
Get stuffed!
TIM:
He’ll do you up a treat, mate.
GALAHAD:
Oh, yeah?
ROBIN:
You mangy Scots git!
TIM:
I’m warning you!
ROBIN:
What’s he do, nibble your bum?
TIM:
He’s got huge, sharp– eh– he can leap about– look at the bones!
ARTHUR:
Go on, Bors. Chop his head off!
BORS:
Right! Silly little bleeder. One rabbit stew comin’ right up!
TIM:
Look!
[squeak]
BORS:
Aaaugh!
[dramatic chord]
[clunk]
ARTHUR:
Jesus Christ!
TIM:
I warned you!
ROBIN:
I done it again!
TIM:
I warned you, but did you listen to me? Oh, no, you knew it all, didn’t you? Oh, it’s just a harmless little bunny, isn’t it? Well, it’s always the same. I always tell them–
ARTHUR:
Oh, shut up!
TIM:
Do they listen to me?
ARTHUR:
Right!
TIM:
Oh, no…
KNIGHTS:
Charge!
[squeak squeak squeak]
KNIGHTS:
Aaaaugh!, Aaaugh!, etc.
ARTHUR:
Run away! Run away!
KNIGHTS:
Run away! Run away!…
TIM:
Ha ha ha ha! Ha haw haw! Ha! Ha ha!
ARTHUR:
Right. How many did we lose?
LAUNCELOT:
Gawain.
GALAHAD:
Ector.
ARTHUR:
And Bors. That’s five.
GALAHAD:
Three, sir.
ARTHUR:
Three. Three. And we’d better not risk another frontal assault. That rabbit’s dynamite.
ROBIN:
Would it help to confuse it if we run away more?
ARTHUR:
Oh, shut up and go and change your armour.
GALAHAD:
Let us taunt it! It may become so cross that it will make a mistake.
ARTHUR:
Like what?
GALAHAD:
Well… ooh.
LAUNCELOT:
Have we got bows?
ARTHUR:
No.
LAUNCELOT:
We have the Holy Hand Grenade.
ARTHUR:
Yes, of course! The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch! ‘Tis one of the sacred relics Brother Maynard carries with him. Brother Maynard! Bring up the Holy Hand Grenade!
MONKS: [chanting]
Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem. Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem. Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem. Pie Iesu domine, dona eis requiem.
ARTHUR:
How does it, um– how does it work?
LAUNCELOT:
I know not, my liege.
ARTHUR:
Consult the Book of Armaments!
BROTHER MAYNARD:
Armaments, chapter two, verses nine to twenty-one.
SECOND BROTHER:
And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, ‘O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy.’ And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and large chu–
MAYNARD:
Skip a bit, Brother.
SECOND BROTHER:
And the Lord spake, saying, ‘First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it.’
MAYNARD:
Amen.
KNIGHTS:
Amen.
ARTHUR:
Right!
One!… Two!… Five!
GALAHAD:
Three, sir!
ARTHUR:
Three!
[angels sing]
[boom]
iTunes: “Thermal Noise” by Statemachine from the album Cyberl\@b (1998, 6:14).