bloglips - douglips blog

Google's new Privacy Policy

2008-07-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

Gee, I wonder how that happened.

Anniversary #9

2008-06-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

So this past weekend was our 9th anniversary. To celebrate we had arranged a weekend away with no kids camping out at a hippie music festival up in Laytonville. Unfortunately, the entire state of California was on fire that weekend, and the smoke level was ridiculous.

So, we kept driving up the coast to Arcata, where the smoke was much less noticeable. We were able to get a hotel room right on the plaza, and enjoyed a lovely dinner. Later we hit a bar for some drinks and so Laurie could regale me with tale of her college days.

The next day we went to the farmer's market and got some supplies - a loaf of bread and some olive spread and fruit, and we went for a hike in the Arcata redwood grove. We found a picnic table in the middle of nowhere and sat down and had a lovely picnic.

Later we drove to Trinidad and found a great little place with cabins - the Bishop Pine Lodge. We then had a dinner in Trinidad at the Eatery, which looked like a dive but wasn't. We topped the evening off by snuggling under blankets and watching bad movies on HBO.

We'll have to see if we can do this again before Anniversary #10.

Hours of No Power

2008-01-05T20:58:00.000-08:00

We're entering our 36th hour with no electricity in the wake of some pretty good winter storms. We've had days with just as much or even more rain, but it's never been with as much wind as we had. I was watching sizeable redwood trees, with trunks 5 or 6 feet in diameter bend like reeds.

PG&E says they'll have more information for us in about 24 hours, so it could be a few days before we get power back.

I'm not worried, as long as our generator keeps purring along. Hopefully there will be a break in the rain tomorrow so I can change the oil...

We Can Buy It Today, Daddy!

2007-10-13T15:54:00.000-07:00

"We can buy it today, Daddy!"

Those excited words came while Sabina and the twins were watching a show. Uh-oh, I thought, I let them see a commercial.

I was right, Sabina had seen an advertisement for Barbie Island Princess, and she was excited because they told her we could buy it today! I explained that we weren't going shopping just then, but perhaps she could ask for it for Christmas. This was a very popular idea, so she instantly started using her newfound ability to write to compose a Christmas gift wish list. She invited input from the twins as well. Here is what they came up with:

Sabina

Barbie Island Princess movie (Ilind Prisses Moove as she wrote)
Barbie Princess Rapunzel (doll I suppose, need to check if she already has this)
Toy Table and Toy Stove ("that I can cook real food in!")
More Barbies

Calvin

Car with a Roof - he's got a red remote control convertible, he wants one with a roof.
Firetruck
Toy airplane that comes apart, bigger than the one he already has

Mikaela

toy instrument (drum)

All

Tinkertoys
Umbrellas
3 Candy Canes
3 pumpkins
Christmas Decorations

She finished off with:

I wil lev sum coocees owt. I love you

Welsh Rabbit: Now With Actual Rabbit!

2006-11-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

A SPICY sausage known as the Welsh Dragon will have to be renamed after trading standards’ officers warned the manufacturers that they could face prosecution because it does not contain dragon.

Brilliant!

Next you'll tell me that Welsh Rabbit must contain actual rabbit, and that Long Island Ice Tea must contain actual tea.

Microsoft Design Principles

2006-09-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

Those tricky ellipses.

Surprise! You've got a cat, AND a huge vet bill!

2006-09-17T20:09:00.000-07:00

I live in a rural neighborhood, so we have our fair share of racoons, skunks, and other varmints running around. We also have some cats of varying ferality roaming, along with genuine bobcats.

This summer I noticed that something had pushed open one of my crawlspace vents. I typically get rats in the winter, and I've noticed one or two small cracks that they might be getting into, but this was a big 16"x6" vent that was wide open for any critter to get in. This lit a fire under my but, it being September and rat weather just around the corner...

So, after a trip to Home Depot to prepare for the job (vent covers, spray foam sealant for the cracks, a roll of mesh screen to cover various weird utility slots in the walls) I was ready to go. Today was to be D-Day.

Yesterday, I heard a meow under my deck, but try as I might I couldn't find the meower. Today, I heard it again, and realized it was coming from my crawlspace. 20 minutes with a flashlight later, I found a little cute as a button kitty cat. Later the vet told me he was probably 5 weeks old.

Oh, one more thing. His front paw was caught in a rat trap. :(

So, I got the leather gloves out and put him in a box. He hissed and spat at me, but never tried to scratch or bite.

After I took the trap off his paw, he settled down. I could see bone exposed, so off to the vet hospital we went. Sunday prices, of course. Why couldn't he have meowed a bit more yesterday? $400 dollars later, we probably need to get the paw and/or portions of the leg amputated. I didn't get an actual estimate from the hospital, they want a real surgeon to take a look at it - but the ballpark seems to be 1 to 3. Thousand.

She did say that a local vet might be able to do it cheaper though, so I think we'll give that a shot. I don't know how much money I want to invest in this thing, but the damn thing was so cute and cuddly, never once hissing, scratching or biting after I got the trap off. I think I might be in love, dammit.

Fiery Bitter Golden Dragonfly

2006-08-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

Five years ago a challenge was issued in my company:

It has been suggested that we adopt code names for the various software releases, which is a great idea. The "3.x.x" or "4.x" etc. names are both boring and confusing (they may change during the development cycle). I have proposed to use bug names (large supply available), and since no one has stopped me (too late now), let us go with this idea.

You are therefore invited to vote for the bugs of your choice, for the 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0 releases.

Spoiler: Today I'm working on 6.1.4, so you know how this is going to turn out.

Here, in its entirety, is my response to this challenge:

4.0 Hornet
5.0 Mantis
6.0 Scorpion

Before anyone protests about that last one, Merriam-Webster says:

Main Entry: 2bug
   Function: noun
   Etymology: origin unknown
   Date: 1622
1 a : an insect or other creeping or crawling invertebrate

So I believe scorpion is acceptable as a 'crawling invertebrate'.

On another note, let me suggest that intermediate releases have some kind of adjective name so that if they get rolled together we can just merge the names. I further think that naming 'releases' is the wrong approach, but naming 'feature sets' is the right approach, for example Decision Tables could be "Cyan", BRTG mk. II could be "Shiny", Deployment Manager can be "Tempting", so that we can later release "Shiny Cyan" or "Tempting Cyan" and know what's in them.

But, if we are stuck with naming "releases", I propose colors for single point releases (3.x) and temperatures/textures/flavors/other adjectives for minor point releases (3.x.x).

For example, we had 3.2.1, 3.2.2, and 3.3, and then 3.2.2 got rolled into 3.3. If the code names for these were Hot, Smooth, and Blue, then when Smooth and Blue were merged we'd have 'Smooth Blue'. Everyone would immediately know that if they were working on Smooth, now they are working on Smooth Blue. If all three of these releases were merged, we'd have "Hot Smooth Blue". Colors can also be merged, for example if 3.3 "Blue" and 3.4 "Green" are merged, you could have "Hot Smooth Blue-Green".

Furthermore, since we use colors for point releases we can merge them onto the corresponding main release name and refer to "Smooth Blue-Green Hornet" or "Funky Cold Magenta Scorpion".

We should avoid having contradictory adjectives in adjacent releases to avoid things like "Cold Hot Luke-Warm Dragonfly", if we plan the names just a little better we could have "Fiery Bitter Golden Dragonfly", for example, which would make a really cool martial arts movie title.

(In case anyone things I'm joking, I'm serious about naming things with adjectives and merging the names when needed. I'm not so serious about particular names like "Icy Purple Sticky Dung Beetle", though.)

-Doug "Hotblack" Simpkinson

Virtualization to End IT Slump?

2006-06-05T14:25:00.000-07:00

An article in the Washington Times claims that tons of unused server hardware exists, purchased in preparation for massive Y2K failures that never happened. Now finally that hardware is being put to use, primarily because of virtualization technology.

It's hard for me to imagine people running two different servers on two different pieces of hardware if the same processes could run on one box. Why not just unplug one of them instead of paying the "$800 per month electric bill"?

tags: virtualization, y2k, dotcom bust

Kimberly Mine Tragedy

2006-05-20T15:37:00.000-07:00

Four people were killed at the Sullivan mine in Kimberly this week. The linked story gives as many details as are known about the incident, but I asked my Dad about his time working there:

I worked in the Sullivan mine in the summer of 1954 as a mine surveyors helper. We would go into the mine in the morning and survey all the new advances in the tunneling from the day before (they would blast at the end of the shift). We would go out of the mine about lunch time and rush through the change room and showers before the miners came out as the safety people would dump cans of very fine aluminum dust into the hopper on whistle like devices connected to compressed air. When they opened the valve the black aluminum dust would fill the air and get on your skin and clothes. The aluminum dust was meant to get into the miners lungs and form aluminum hydroxide, a phlegm-like substance that would float the silicon particles out of the lungs as they coughed. After we got back in the office we would plot up all the advances on several different scales of map for all the levels and perspectives of raises coming up out of the various levels

There was an area of the mine where the lead and zinc sulfide ore was oxidizing and releasing SO₂ if the air got at it. This area was sealed off and called the "hot box"; when you were in tunnels adjoining this area it was uncomfortably hot as the heat came through the rock, the rest of the mine was a comfortable 60 to 65F or so. I think it was SO₂ that got the people, I don't know what they were doing, probably something to do with decommissioning in an enviro-friendly manner.

His speculation on the SO₂ was probably premature - from the first article we saw on this it wasn't clear where the victims were. It now appears they were above ground in a water monitoring shed - who knows what could have contributed to an oxygen poor condition in there. Perhaps some dissolved substance in the water oxidized in the shed. At this point, thought, anything my Dad or I could say about this would be pure speculation. I'll be interested to follow this story to see if they determine a cause.

tags: Kimberly mine, Sullivan mine, mine accident, mine tragedy

Virtual Account Numbers

2006-05-18T11:43:00.000-07:00

Elliotte Rusty Harold has a bit on Citibank's virtual account numbers. This is a great service I've been using at MBNA for several years now.

One thing he doesn't mention is that in addition to making a "one-time-use" credit card number, you can specify a maximum credit line and an expiration date.

Here's what it looks like on MBNA when you choose the credit limit and expiration date. This way you know that not only can only one person charge the card, but that they can't exceed the amount you actually bought.

They do have some bits in the terms of service about how they have the right to extend the credit limit by a small amount to account for sales tax and shipping charges, but you can be sure that they'll refuse a charge that is significantly higher than you specify.

Good stuff.

tags: virtual account numbers, credit cards

Portable Rotary Phone

2006-04-17T00:56:00.000-07:00

This is a classic. The guys at Spark Fun Electronics have built a cell phone into an old rotary phone body. The rotary dial actual dials the cellphone circuitry, and it comes complete with obnoxious bell ringing "ringtone".

tags: homebrew, rotary phone

Comcast: Evil, or Just Stupid?

2006-03-29T22:16:00.000-08:00

Until February, I was a somewhat satisfied customer of Comcast. I was happily paying about $50/month for digital cable, and everything seemed just fine. Until the day he called - with his annoying telemarketer script and his headphone and his predictive dialing - to offer me discounted HBO. I wasn't interested, but he had to wave the prospect of a full refund in front of my face, so I thought it was easier to let him sign me up for HBO than it was to deal with the salesdrone. Of course, I made sure to note on the calendar the deadline.

I specifically asked him "So, if I cancel in less than 30 days, I can go back to what I had before?" He said yes. If he had not said yes, I would have said goodbye, but he said yes, so I allowed him to sign me up.

Lying sack of Comcast. After 25 days, I called to cancel HBO. I said "Put me back on what I had last month before I got HBO."

It took me a couple of days to notice that the cable was not working at all. All of my DVR recorded shows were completely black and silent. Fortunately, I have a ReplayTV so I could easily (and legally) download the shows I missed from my "friends." Unfortunately I had to spend more time on the phone, again specifically asking to get back on whatever I had before the entire HBO fiasco. Finally I verify that my digital channels are working again, and all seems right in the universe.

One more month passes, and we arrive at Tuesday. I'm paying bills when I see my Comcast bill. It was $65. Sixty five freaking dollars. Instantly I was on the phone with a customer service representative, who seemed very nice and even spoke English very well. Unfortunately, my situation did not seem to evoke any sympathy in her.

I explained my situation to her, and that I just wanted to be on whatever freaking service plan I had before the asshole called me and convinced me to change anything about my service at all. At that point, we arrived at this conversation:

Me:  Why did my bill go up by so much? Did you add more channels? If so, please take them away and put me back on what I had before.
Drone: Can I put you on hold?
Me:  Sure. [seethes]
Drone: Sorry to keep you waiting sir. We no longer offer the package you had before, the digital plus plan we offer is $65/month.
Me:  If I had not changed plans would I have been able to continue on at $50/month?
Drone: Well, we did make some adjustments to cable rates in your area, so it would have gone up.
Me:  I'm quite used to rate increases, and I would have silently paid a rate increase of 3 or perhaps even 5%. But this is a 30% rate increase! Are you seriously tell me that if I hadn't done any changes to my plan that you were just going to send me a bill for 30% more than the previous month? Did you just expect I would bend over and take it?
Drone: Can I ask you to hold again sir?
Me:  Sure. Whatever.
Drone: Sorry to keep you waiting. We did an audit of our service offerings and found that we were not charging as much in your area as in some other areas, so we made some adjustments.
Me:  30 freaking percent? I had service in Sunnyvale before I moved here, and the rates were similar. Are you saying that you just raised rates for the entire Bay Area by 30 freaking percent?

So I'm pretty sure she was lying to me, because I know that if that jerk had never called me and my rates shot up, I would have been on the phone to satellite providers the very next instant.

The upshot of this all is that I had the drone turn off my digital service and just give me standard cable for $33/month. I'm going to look into getting satellite service, but I just don't have the freaking time available to research providers and see if I have too many trees etc. etc. So I have no idea how long it will be.

But for now I take comfort in the fact that the original sales drone's rate of return on the call he made to me was -$17/month.

Tags: Comcast, customer service, cable

The Cafes: Confirming GETs Considered Harmful

2006-03-21T12:51:00.000-08:00

Elliotte Rusty Harold says:

In particular I was using a GET to make something happen: confirm a message. What really shocked me was that Google’s GMail and possibly other clients will prefetch such URLs, maybe even before the user ever reads the e-mail. In other words, the confirmation can be accidental. Oops. As soon as Bill pointed it out, I saw my error. Google is absolutely within its rights to prefetch such a URL. I should not be using a GET to confirm the message. That needs to be done with a POST.

Is this really an issue? What email clients pre-fetch links in the email message? GMail uses such links to confirm an email address you'd like to send mail from, so I can't believe GMail will trip this. Here's how you can test this:

Get a gmail account, call it foo@gmail.com
Set some other account foo@example.com to forward mail to that gmail account.
In Gmail, add foo@example.com to your "accounts" settings. Google will email foo@example.com with a GET link to confirm you actually receive this email.
You'll receive that email at GMail, and can click the GET link to activate it.

Now, technically it is within a client's right to pre-fetch any URLs they desire. But in an email client that seems irresponsible, when some of those URLs might be:

Click here to confirm for my spam list that your email address is valid! (Note, this is the same reason email clients don't usually display hotlinked images in-line by default anymore.)
Click here to give me a fractional penny in some referrer/clickfraud scheme!

In short I find it hard to believe that any email client, even a browser based one, would pre-fetch any link in any email. It's just a bad idea. Does anyone have an example where this actually happens?

Tags: REST, CMS, web development

White Guys + Rapping = Crazy Racist

2006-01-12T10:21:00.000-08:00

Baltimore City Paper's Vincent Williams, actin' like he never seen parody before, just about has an aneurysm over the Lazy Sunday video.

... you know what? I just find the whole thing vaguely racist. No, hear me out. It’s like, the very concept of Parnell and Samberg, who appear to be two suburban white guys, rapping about going to a nerdy movie is intrinsically funny. Why is that? Is it because rapping is expected to be reserved for hyperviolent, hypersexualized, and, of course, hyperblack discussion of killin’, jewelry, and, of course, bitches?

Yeah, that must be it. I guess we can call him Johnnie Cochran by the way he's droppin' race cards.

Tags: lazy sunday, racism

NASA Sees Impact on Moon

2006-01-03T09:31:00.000-08:00

The BBC is reporting that NASA scientists have observed a meteoroid impact on the moon.

I've managed to leverage my astrophysics connections to obtain a picture of the impact damage for your pleasure.

Tags: moon, tick

Eye of the Storm

2006-01-02T12:09:00.000-08:00

Here in Northern California, we are getting absolutely pounded by rain. Here is an image from the very excellent Weather Underground site. I always get nervous when there is red in the radar image...

Tags: weather, rain, santa cruz

Eight Inches

2005-12-19T00:08:00.000-08:00

I'm not bragging. Some people have much more. But, sometimes it just seems like a whole heck of a lot of rain to fall in 24 hours.

And my wife, well, she just loves my big 10 inch - 36 hour storm total.

For those in metric land - 8 inches is approximately 1 metric boatload of rain.

Baby Stuff For Sale - Good for Twins

2005-12-18T21:01:00.000-08:00

Two Matching Simmons Cribs

Two identical Simmons cribs, medium cherry wood color, mattresses included, excellent condition..... $140 each or both for $250

Two Matching Chicco Mamma High Chairs

Two highchairs are also for sale! Chicco High Chairs, adjustable height, reclining seat, wheels (with brakes), vinyl seat covers--navy with moon and stars theme, straps, and a vinyl covered "booster" insert for when they are still small, removable white plastic tray with cup holder area built in. Both for $125 OBO.

Two Matching Play-Dee-Bugs

I also have a few more perfect "twin" things--two matching Play-de-Bugs (ladybug exersaucer type of thing, $25 for both); lots of really cute boy/girl matching twin outfits, etc.

We are in the San Lorenzo Valley (just north of Santa Cruz), but can possibly deliver to Santa Cruz or San Jose areas for $20.

Typepad Update

2005-12-16T14:39:00.000-08:00

Six Apart is claiming that "We have no reason to believe that any of your posts, comments, TrackBacks, photos or files have been lost."

That is somewhat comforting, although it is oddly phrased.

Tags: sixapart, typepad, six apart, blogs

Sixapart's Typepad Loses Blog Posts

2005-12-16T11:59:00.000-08:00

The Typepad blogging service has apparently lost data due to a disk issue. It isn't clearly stated that the data is recoverable. This means that posts from the last several days are missing from such blogs as The Dilbert Blog, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Obscure Store and countless others. Something tells me that reliable storage vendors should be preparing quotes for Sixapart.

See also coverage from Neville Hobson, Blogebrity, and Dan Leonard.

Tags: sixapart, typepad, six apart, blogs

How Many Barrels Of Oil Does Your Computer Burn?

2005-12-06T09:56:00.000-08:00

Today I came across an ad for the new Sun Fire T1000 server, which is supposedly "eco-responsible". I suppose that means it takes less electrical power to do the same job as other servers.

So how do they sell this? With this ad:

Note that they equate server power with oil usage, in complete ignorance of the fact that in the U.S. almost no power is generated from oil. Unless you're in Hawaii...

I especially like the "Let's Change This" trademark. Brilliant.

Update: Insurance Companies Still Don't Like Sick People

2005-12-01T15:35:00.000-08:00

Dedicated reader [sic] of this blog will no doubt recall that my insurance company was trying to weasel out of paying.

At the time, I filled out the form, dutifully checking the "No, you suckers must pay" box and sent it off. A month later, I got another one, and figuring it was just bureaucratic malaise or a lost form, I sent it back as well.

Today I got the third form, so I called them. Of course they had no record of me sending in the forms, but this time I'm assured that they will not be sending me any more of these love letters.

We'll just see about that.

Tags: health insurance

The Great Redwood City Pigeon Massacre of 2000

2005-11-16T19:56:00.000-08:00

Redwood City is home to the Sequoia Station shopping center, with a Safeway grocery store, a bagel shop, 2 or 3 Starbucks, hair cuttery, etc. For some reason, pigeons REALLY like to hang out there. Every once in a while, this leads to news coverage. Take Elock Poon, for example. In 2003 he decided to run over a bunch of pigeons, successfully exterminating 14 of them. For this shameless act of avicide, he faced the possibility of animal cruelty charges.

But my favorite Redwood City pigeon tale is the Great Redwood City Pigeon Massacre of 2000. The pigeons had become such a nuisance that somebody decided something must be done about the 8 metric tons of guano deposited on the roof every year. So, they hired someone to disperse the birds.

The theory is that if you feed a pigeon something that makes it sick, and better yet makes it dance around telling other pigeons "Danger!", it won't return to wherever it was it found the food. So, a contractor was called to dispense some pigeon-nauseating substance, probably Avitrol.

Apparently whenever you use this stuff, some of the birds are going to die. If you wish, I suppose you could use it in such a way that most or all of the birds die. The goal, I suspect, is to either kill the birds where they are or to not kill very many at all.

So up on the roof of the shopping center go the baskets of tasty grain, tempting the birds to come and eat for a week or two. And then, treachery. The grain is replaced with a mixture of regular grain and poisoned grain, and the pigeons eat heartily.

As the first few pigeons start to feel the effects, the others are startled. Soon, many pigeons are freaking out, and the ones who still feel OK decide to get the heck out of there.

Now from Sequoia Station, it's just a short pigeon-hop directly into the downtown area. So it was around mid morning when the workers on the main street in Redwood City started noticing thudding sounds on their roofs. When they heard the sounds of astonishment from passersby on the street, they ventured to the windows to take a look.

Imagine how surprised you would be if it started raining pigeons. Many of the pigeons were dead or dying, but even if they were just sick, an impact with the street from their normal cruising altitude would usually prove fatal. As Less Nessman might say, "My God! The pigeons are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement!"

Now the only evidence I can find of this great tragedy are the following chunks of webstranea - a mention of the desire to establish "a policy regarding Avitrol use" in the October 16, 2000 City Council Minutes, and this brief FAQlet from the Avitrol website:

Since there will always be mortality, arrange to pick up dead and dying birds promptly and dispose of them in accordance with local regulations. Failure to do this is the most common cause of public complaint.

Oh, and if you can possibly manage it, convince the birds to fly over the nearby poor Hispanic neighborhood rather than the more upscale downtown. In general, the wealthier the annoyed taxpayer, the more noise the City Council will make.

Tags: pigeon redwood city avitrol

Sabina and the Loolapede

2005-11-14T01:04:00.000-08:00

Fall's early sunsets and relatively mild weather gives us a chance for exploring after dark with the kids. Load up the flashlights and head out to see what you can find.

Tonights first miracle of nature, a millipede! I managed to get the millipede crawling on my hands, and transferred it to Sabina's hands. She was enthralled. "She's my best friend. I love her lots! She's so gentle." I had no idea that she would stay interested for so long, but she kept this thing crawling on her hands for about 20 minutes.

Until, the horror began. "Awww, she's so cute. Ahhh! It's crawling up my arm!! HELP!" Apparently, the millipede was only her best friend as long as it crawled in the Designated Petting Area between her wrists and fingertips. She dropped the millipede once, then picked it up again, and finally dropped it again after another sleeve excursion.

This gave us a dilemma. Apparently she really wanted to keep the millipede, but was too freaked out/tired/annoyed to hold it herself. I was not interested in holding the millipede, so I tried to explain.

"She's going home, I think maybe she has some babies to feed."
"But I don't want her to go home. I don't like her anymore. I want to squish on her!"
"Let's not squish her. Let her go."
"I don't like loolapedes. She's being mean to me."

Finally, the millipede had nearly escaped to the edge of the road, and Sabina lost enough interest that I thought we were home free. Unfortunately, the relationship ended as all vertebrate-invertebrate friendships must - with a shattered, oozing exoskeleton. Surprisingly, the death blow was not dealt on purpose by Sabina, but by a bumbling Calvin, intent on shining his light on a fern or some such.

"Did Calvin step on the loolapede?!?!?!?"
"I don't know, I think maybe she's gone home to her babies." Little white lies, Daddy. Little white lies.
"But the LOOLAPEDE WAS MY FRIEND!!!!"

In hindsight, I think our nap was a little short today.

Tags: millipede children