# 01 Mar 2006, 11:28AM: "We have not done the needful": An awesome effort to put medical knowledge in the public domain to guard against patent hijackers, but also an example of "to do the needful" in the wild.
# 01 Mar 2006, 04:41PM GMT+5:30: Time Capsule:
Fog Creek just rearranged some furniture. Probably the most minor effect of this was that I espied a copy of Linux Journal whose cover article was titled:
Podcast And Reel In The Blogs And Wikis
Every once in a while I try to imagine myself as a person from a really long time ago, like 1990, seeing that sort of sentence with a high jargon-to-common-word ratio.
Currently I'm reading a Christmas gift from Leonard's sister and mother, the very good A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Ulrich interprets a diary of a Martha Ballard, a New England housewife and midwife from colonial and Revolutionary times. Ballard was resourceful, sturdy, and smart (as far as we can tell), but "Podcast And Reel In The Blogs And Wikis" might seem a sentence from a foreign language to her.
# 02 Mar 2006, 07:01PM: Snow's Stopped:
More furniture's been rearranged at work. It feels as though I work in a living room, which is pleasant. Then again, I want to take my shoes off to read on the couch, but I don't want to take off my shoes at work. Dilemma!
It seems relevant that the book I'd read is one on positioning.
Green Day's "Time of Your Life" relates to "American Idiot" somehow.
The silliest Joel On Software entry.
I pace when I talk on the phone.
# 03 Mar 2006, 10:35AM: Krepichy On A Mac: "I didn't say any of those things. Why are you claiming that I said that?"
# 05 Mar 2006, 07:47PM: Fulfilling Weekend Socialization:
Saw MC Frontalot live with Adam, John, John's posse, and a math postdoc who's like Cousin Vinay Meets Steve Shipman. Also met a member of the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe and a neuroscience grad student. The postdoc and grad student and I reminisced about reading Amar Chitra Katha. Adam explained horrible things about his job to me and I understood them, and I learned lessons about what NOT to do when I am a software manager someday. John's posse had me to lunch in the wilds of Long Island, so I took the Long Island Railroad for the first time. I also saw a New York City rat for the first time, and screamed like a caricature in a New Yorker cartoon.
Dar Williams plays Huntington (on Long Island) this week. I'm interested in going but only if someone else is too.
# 07 Mar 2006, 05:45PM: Evidently Everyone But Me Reads Overcompensating:
I know Leonard is a Rowland fan, so when MC Frontalot pointed him (and Goats's Rosenberg) out on Saturday night, I asked him for an autograph for my boyfriend. He indeed did draw a nice picture, dedicated to Leonard, in my notebook, just after someone informed him that some other female wanted to kiss him.
This is depicted in his cartoon today and I evidently have the most angular chin ever.
# 08 Mar 2006, 03:00PM: Of Course:
Wikipedia explains the history of Amar Chitra Katha.
It's possible to buy all of ACK. The official ACK site in India charges 9097 rupees (about USD$205) for the whole set of 244, plus overseas shipping. DesiKnowledge in the US charges $423 (plus shipping I assume) but only has 235 of the books.
I already have a bunch of the comics, but many of my copies are falling apart, I don't have (for example) the biographies of Einstein, Jesus, and Kalpana Chawla. So I should just make a list of the ones I'm missing and ask my parents to send or bring them to me. Ordering the entire run of ACK online smacks of decadence. Doesn't it?
# 09 Mar 2006, 11:46AM: Bodies And Motion:
John-Paul might like some thoughts on "Skin".
Some lighthearted "How geeky are you?" litmus tests, including:
So, I made the effort to figure out what time interval it takes for one rotation, and then always punch in a multiple of that so I don't have to strain myself to grab the mug, and the handle is always facing me when I open the door...I assume you all know what time division you have to type into the microwave so your coffee mug returns to the same position? I mean, you don't want to have to twist your wrist, or grab the sides of your hot coffee mug...do you?
# 11 Mar 2006, 12:05PM: Park Slop:
Yesterday and today feature the best weather since Leonard and I arrived in NYC. The window is open and Leonard has fed me macaroni and cheese (with peas and mockmeat and hot sauce) and apple pie (with cheddar cheese). What tremendous well-being good weather and food can produce.
Fred Clark points us to Orwell's book analyzing Dickens. I have read almost no Dickens, which is rather a flaw in my education. More cool stuff to read! I've actually been exhilirated over the past few weeks as I've discovered topics I really want to learn, like Scheme, the advantages and disadvantages of various bugtrackers, accounting, finance, microeconomics, effective sales techniques, etc. The Fog Creek reading list (although that's out of date) and my wantlist hint at some of those topics. Part of the Fog Creek program is that I'm getting paid to read, after all.
Leonard and I visited the "Second Chances" thrift shop on Astoria Boulevard yesterday. It feels like a giant unkempt garage sale, and the thousands of books are precariously piled in such a way that you can't even see the titles of half of them. I wonder whether that store hides any treasures. I might have extracted "Anatomy of a Compiler" from the stack were I more courageous.
One great thing about learning tech in 2006 is that so much great material is free and online -- SICP and the accompanying lectures, for example. Reddit provides me with a few edifying items each day; I might start reading Digg, or even visit Slashdot again.
I've become a more productive and self-directed worker than I was at highly structured jobs I've had before. I restrict my web browsing at work to Reddit links, basically, and wipe out my web history every few weeks to lower address bar autocompletion temptation. I sometimes listen to rock music to get my spirits up to do some hairy task, or have no music or instrumental or non-English music for background. But more than all this, I feel responsible and important.
This week, a bunch of Fog Creek people went to the Emerging Tech conference in California. The first day, I was sort of freaked out that I was the only one who could take care of various incoming stuff. But then, the second and third days, I took ownership of the thing and was actually more productive than I've been since I got here. It was pretty awesome. Soon my mentor will be lounging on a beach hammock or something inside the office, sipping fruity umbrella drinks while playing Xbox with sunglasses on, while I explain to prospective customers why FogBugz is tremendous. Maybe I can shoehorn in the "Benjamin Harrison/no comparison" campaign theme song, only it's FogBugz instead of Harrison.
This weather is making me punchy. Maybe I'll trot around and do NYC tourism this weekend. Sketch comedy or diners in Brooklyn, anyone?
Yay for seeing Brendan soon! Yay for Leonard's book deadline and an application deadline for me being over soon!
# 12 Mar 2006, 04:08PM: MC Masala on Alcohol:
Still chasing down a link to last week's column; InsideBayArea has redesigned its site. My column this week is basically a giant response to my parents, my ex, Leonard, DARE, and especially Brendan. It's insufficient as a response to Brendan's essays, but it's a start.
Brendan wrote, of being a teetotaler among drinkers: "Their choices don't define who they are; I don't think I'll ever understand why mine apparently does." The pat answer is that all our choices define us. Also, especially when the abstainer is abstaining from something that people in his society commonly consume or do, the conscious choice of the abstainer forces the person who doesn't abstain to examine her unthinking choice, possibly finding it wanting. Look at how US meat-eaters often treat vegetarians or vegans, imagining self-righteousness where there's often none.
My first semester at UC Berkeley, I went to some seminar/workshop at a gender resource center on campus. There, I learned some interesting and useful factoids about reproductive health, safety, and the like. But one thing I was told there I've never quite gotten over: people's identities are independent of their behavior. Example: a man who has sex with men may identify as straight, not gay or bisexual.
I reflexively believe that choices generate identity. (Yeah, there are some identities you get born with, too.) You choose to teach, you're a teacher. You choose to lie, you're a liar. You choose to abstain from alcohol, you're a teetotaler, and that's an unusual and shaping choice if your milieu partakes. A man who has sex with other men but identifies as heterosexual is entertaining delusions. This is a huge topic and I'm probably being too harsh and narrowminded, somehow, somehow.But I only started drinking after I'd gotten some maturity, as a person paranoid about self-control and the epistemology of experience, just as I only got a credit card after I'd started supporting myself and living within my means. Your mileage will vary.
# 12 Mar 2006, 05:23PM: Online Voice: Flea of One Good Thing writes a letter to her sons. She's pseudonymous. Even if I were too, I don't think I could be as vulnerable in a blog as she is in that entry.
# 12 Mar 2006, 05:53PM: More Profound Jon Stewart Advice:
Via Slacktivist: Very odd interview between Larry King and Jon Stewart.
I really feel like I have gotten to this weird place where rejection, like, or bombing or things like that is kind of like it's a good kind of pain. Like you get a shot to the ribs sometimes and you go, eh, I'm alive, you know what I mean? Like it doesn't -- it doesn't -- you get to a certain baseline where you feel confident in your ability to do that tiny little thing that you do. And the other stuff that you've been allowed to do is sort of gravy, and if it doesn't work out, that's really all right.
# 12 Mar 2006, 06:38PM: "Spaced": Turn-of-the-century British sitcom "Spaced" is pretty funny. Leonard and I watched the entire run of it last night. Of course, it's British, so the entire run is 14 episodes. And you thought Arrested Development was a brief candle!
# 12 Mar 2006, 10:39PM: Links While Procrastinating Writing Important Deadline Things:
Haikus about Muni, often on the themes of tourists, lateness, and feast-and-famine arrivals.
"Religion isn't the opiate of the masses anymore, Karl. IDEs are." My ad hoc campaign to learn the world of programming continues apace! A booklist from the same guy may help; I've added a few books from there onto my wantlist/to-read list. Probably most of them are already in the Fog Creek library.
# 13 Mar 2006, 09:06AM: Quote of the Day: "That's my meta-weakness: getting into situations where my weakness is applicable."
# 13 Mar 2006, 06:48PM: What Do You Call Someone Who Knows No Languages At All?:
Last week's MC Masala did not answer that question but poked fun at my own language foibles.
As an aside: If India's Hollywood, Bombay, is called "Bollywood," then shouldn't we call Bangalore "Bilicon Balley" or "Bilicon Bateau"? Then again, Bombay is Mumbai now and no one's calling it "Mollywood."
# 13 Mar 2006, 08:47PM: Sad Insight:
Frighteningly often, the moments of lucid contentment in my life involve consumption. Just now, I felt that complacent blanket as I drank rooibos tea, listened to Belle & Sebastian and Harvey Danger, and read John-Paul. Yes, these are all exquisite experiences, but how come I don't feel that way while or after creating something?
Back to column-writing.
# 18 Mar 2006, 07:48AM: Certainty And Judgments: Slacktivist pointed me to a post about morality at Obsidian Wings.
# 18 Mar 2006, 09:50AM: QOTD: "Sales is seduction; marketing is propaganda."
# 19 Mar 2006, 03:26PM: Erudition:
In this week's column I talk about the word on the tip of my tongue.
The most powerful word I've learned in the past decade is probably "satisfice." Researcher Herb Simon coined this word, a combination of "satisfy" and "suffice," to describe a common decision-making method: instead of evaluating all possible options, we take the first adequate one. We often don't have the time or resources to find the optimal solution, so we quickly satisfice instead. I've taken to reminding myself to satisfice when ordering in restaurants. If I hadn't learned the word, I might not be using the concept.
# 20 Mar 2006, 01:39PM: Business Names: Man, there are a lot of business out there with "solution[s]" in their titles.
# 20 Mar 2006, 05:00PM: Nerdvana:
Some peers of mine have been wondering whether any of the YCombinator startups actually cure pressing user needs. Leonard points out that reddit and infogami are cool, and that two successes out of eight attempts aren't bad, but I still can't reconcile that outcome with the hype.
More than a year ago, Eric Sink wrote "Great Hacker != Great Hire". Graham thinks you want to hire prima donnas, who are fussy and don't want to solve niggling little problems. Or, rather, he thinks these people should start and run companies. But if you can't stand to interface with the real, grubby, world, then how will you know what problems in it need solving?
It's the same problem that leads to engagement (and not sanctions) in trade with China, or agreeing to see relatives with hateful political or religious views at Thanksgiving. Purity loses you more than engagement gains you.
My views are limited by limited information and perceptions, I am but a tiny grain of rice, blah blah blah.
# 22 Mar 2006, 12:25PM: In Which I Ponder Joe's Amazement That I Watch Substantial TV:
You know what's really depressing? When I could have been learning Lisp or Kannada or organic chemistry or the piano, I was watching multiple episodes of
and I don't know how many other forgettable shows. I've also watched a lot of Seinfeld, Mad About You, Star Trek, Animaniacs, Batman: The Animated Series, Bill Nye The Science Guy, Square One TV, Law & Order, The Practice, House, The Daily Show, Arrested Development, America's Test Kitchen, Good Eats, and other stuff that seems more worthwhile to me than the sitcoms and dramas in the first list. But there was still a horrible lot of time wasted.
I don't know why my parents let me watch so much TV; maybe they thought I worked hard at school the rest of the time so I should get to relax in front of the tube sometimes. And God knows I read enough for three kids even though I watched a lot of TV. I had hardly any friends (at least ones that I spent substantial outside-school time with) between sixth and twelfth grades, so that left a lot of time for homework, reading, and TV.
Still. How many hours was that? I envy the imaginary person I would be had I eschewed all those useless shows on my first list. I can't even imagine the person I'd be if I had never seen the others.
# 22 Mar 2006, 11:10PM: Miscellany From The Last 36 Hours:
"You could use Dissociated Press to generate the string and then reverse the tokens. Is 'tokens' the right word?" "Yes, it is." "YES!"
"What's the singular of vermin?"
Since people who arrive new and befuddled at Fog Creek are like children who walk into the middles of movies, I'm now a Donny.
"There's a difference between not caring what people think and not caring how people feel."
"I am pretty sure I am paraphrasing Bruce Schneier...."
"....since we're a Haskell shop."
"[A colleague] is awesome. But I respect his boundaries!"
Joe heard that I am probably going to learn Lisp soon, tried to think of reasons to use to dissuade me, then realized that he shouldn't.
Ed McMahon could be an oracle. If you tell him a statement and it's true, he says, "Heyo!" or "You are correct, sir." If it's false then he just sits impassively.
"I called to talk to you! You are an end, not a means!"
"Is there casinoness?"
[Awed silence, upon seeing and lightly touching the boxed set of the complete Calvin & Hobbes collection.]
# 23 Mar 2006, 08:23AM: A New Theodicy:
"If you don't like it, file a bug with God."
"That's it! The reason that bad things happen is that God doesn't have a copy of FogBugz."
# 23 Mar 2006, 08:50AM: Applying to Grad School:
Not as tough as I'd feared. This is probably because I already took my GREs years ago, at my mom's and sister's insistence, and because I'm applying to various Executive Masters programs and not, say, Ph.D. programs in the hard sciences.
A Crooked Timber thread reminds me of another reason I'm glad to be rid of the Salon customer service gig: print magazine fulfillment.
# 23 Mar 2006, 07:56PM: Have A Laugh With UPCs: "Welcome to the Internet UPC Database! One reason this site exists is for me to practice my own web development & database skills, experiment with new things, and to get a good laugh."
# 24 Mar 2006, 07:44AM: Insults: When you are insulting a piece of software in the "it is ugly" or "it sucks" manner, does it make sense to say "it has diabetes"? Or -- as a colleague suggested -- is mere diabetes morally neutral such that a proper insult would be "it has adult-onset diabetes"?
# 24 Mar 2006, 07:52AM: God Gave You Eyes, Plagiarize:
The Domenech plagiarism scandal has been a field day for Salon, and a more hilarious one than its other recent scoop (censored torture photos from Abu Ghraib (in which they made efforts to protect the privacy of the victims, good on them)).
"By the way, I don't see why so many physicians nowadays claim that Xanax has a 'high dependency profile' when even the most stable adult requires at least 10mgs in order to read the tamer political stories on Salon without experiencing profound generalized anxiety."
# 25 Mar 2006, 01:56PM: Output of Conversations Yesterday And Today:
Make (the magazine) could have sister publications Do and Think, with a yearly compilation entitled Be.
I have a huge constellation of thoughts about initiative, harshness, arrogance, stereotypical geek qualities, and vulnerability rolling around in my head. Maybe I can make it into 1 column; it may be 2.
# 26 Mar 2006, 01:18PM: Frickin' Caitlin Flanagan:
This week, my MC Masala column talks about the trouble with directness.
In software development, you find certain pairs of goals are aligned, like localization and internationalization. And some are opposed, like permissions systems and ease of use. The goal of straightforward information exchange aligns with the goal of getting the date or the kiss sooner, more efficiently. But it opposes the goal of lingering infatuation.
# 26 Mar 2006, 02:11PM: A Punker John Gilmore:
Steve Schultz has moved from Tokyo to the Berkeley Hills, and has started a new blog.
Warning: right now he has some Dooce/Austin Powers II-type scatology on the main page. Balancing that out: a great theme image starring cereal, milk, and booze.Obviously some [elided] bureaucrat in some badly lit room punched some buttons on a computer and now I am on a List. I will never know her name or reasons. That just blows, it is like the movie BRAZIL. Actually brazil rules, but you know what I mean.
# 26 Mar 2006, 03:55PM: Taste Of The Arts:
Every day I give thanks that the strength of the prejudice that led to Gentleman's Agreement (1947) has let down. Yeah, almost everyone's prejudiced in various ways, but it's not as bad as it was. My father came to this country and made a pretty good living as a knowledge worker, a civil engineer. He wasn't the same color or religion as most of his coworkers, but he got jobs and supported his family all the same. How far we've come!
Gentleman's Agreement surprised me with its plot and dialogue. There's a scene where a hotel clerk quietly shuns Peck. I thought it would just be a bunch of those scenes together. Quietly shunned at a restaurant, quietly shunned at an employment office, etc., etc. But it's not, and it's more an attack on cowardice than on out-and-out villains.
I took a couple of acquaintances to see Mike Daisey's show "The Ugly American" (for the second time). I recommend it, and it's closing this week. Warning: very, very dark. And very funny.
Flux Factory, "a not for profit arts organization supporting innovation in things," has a very neat show right now involving beautiful semimechanized musical machines. Walking around in the installation is like playing with the innards of a jukebox. I highly recommend it. It'll be there for the next five weeks.
# 26 Mar 2006, 10:07PM: Cory Maye: Have you heard of Cory Maye?
# 26 Mar 2006, 11:32PM: From The Women Of New York: The New Underground Railroad. Funny how Jane gets distributed.
# 28 Mar 2006, 06:24PM: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.":
"[Mr. Rogers] did tell me that he considered the space between the television set and the viewer holy ground..."
"...[I] saw that my son's eyes were darting, the way they do when he is nervous. He'd researched, made a decision and spoken it aloud. This had cost him."
And then, found because a Joel Spolsky fan said "Verba Volant, Scripta Manent": a liberal blog reminding us of a Borges line:
Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.
# 29 Mar 2006, 07:28AM: When Framing Devices Go Amok:
"The Mahabharata" at Wikipedia:
Arjuna's grandson Parikishit rules after them and dies bitten by a snake. His furious son, Janamejaya, decides to perform a sacrifice in which to kill all the snakes. It is at this sacrifice that the tale of his ancestors is narrated to him. (Incidentally, the sacrifice has to be stopped after sometime and the snakes are not annihilated.)
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