Got curious
what number are you?

this quiz by orsa

Sorta seems right ...

Bottoming out (so to speak) OK, my brain is completely turned off now -- we are watching Are You Hot?. Sex. Kinda basic, I guess. But why do the people who get kicked off have to do those stupid, weepy interviews?

Headlines New York Times headlines are now on the right, you might have noticed. Right now this is done with JavaScript -- I'd actually like to pull the XML feed, but I need to do a little more work there. I have a PHP aggregator I use myself (Rippy the Aggregator) so I should be able to do this, just need some time.

Packing it in We're moving at work -- all of our offices, all of our labs. I packed up my cube today and (no surprise) I have a lot of stuff. Four big orange plastic crates of it, not counting the computers themselves. A lot of it is books. But also a lot of printouts and old notes. Some of it might be intellectual property. Some of it may be historically interesting, or useful reference. Some of it has nostalgia value. Some of it is just junk. I threw out some stuff. I know it was not enough. But I'm not good at throwing out. If you need an Internet World show directory from 1999, I'm your man.

Being and do-ingness A good post on this by Jeff Walsh was pointed out by Dave Winer. I was a reporter for a few years, and a copy editor for longer. Jeff's comment about wanting to do instead of just report recalls when I left the business. There were a lot of reasons why I left, but one of them was feeling the need to somehow participate in the great Internet boom. In my own very small way, I did. Whatever else I do and whether any of it made sense, am glad I was there, in Silicon Alley, in a time we'll never see again.

French whine There's now a lot of talk about "boycotting French wine":http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/054/metro/Wine_buyers_do_their_part+.shtml in protest of France's opposition to a U.S.-led war with Iraq. Now I don't really think the war is a good idea, but frankly I kind of think boycotting France is just fun, anyway. The French attitude is somehow just annoying, even if correct. Boycotting French wine also came up during another ill-advised war, in Vietnam. It never really got very far. Apparently, from looking at Google, boycotting French wine has a long and proud tradition, for reasons ranging from "a tax on beer":http://www.bodensatz.com/ to "an anti-Semitic ambassador":http://www.hsje.org/cause_for_boycott_frances_anti.htm to "weapons testing":http://www-tech.mit.edu/V115/N39/brit.39w.html to "a ban on British beef":http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/525963.stm . I'm not a big wine drinker myself, but I'd say try some Italian wines -- the Italians are just more fun.

Antidepressants and shame I just read a post from someone talking about feeling ashamed at taking antidepressants, and wondering why they should. I think its time to start fighting the idea that these medications are somehow an admission of some sort of failure. I take these pills and I'm proud to say so -- because I confronted a medical problem that kept me from being as happy and productive as I could be. I did not suffer as badly as some. I had a good job, a nice house, a wonderful wife. A lot of people would say I was a pretty "successful" person. But I was often irritable, often just really down -- and was always thinking that somehow this would magically stop if I changed jobs, got past some particular problem, or whatever. Well, that just wasn't happening. I am certainly not saying that drugs are the only solution. Counseling helps, and may be the answer for some. But for me, I am convinced there's a chemical problem, a medical problem that's not just psychological. In a given year it is estimated that 9.5 percent of the population experiences some form of depression, or about 18 million people. That's a lot of people. Sometimes we who take medication are hesitant to say so. We wonder what co-workers will think, what our friends will think. It is more common in women, but that fact often keeps men from being diagnosed. That's a really bad thing -- untreated depression has been linked to higher death rates in men from coronary disease. So I've been thinking that keeping this little secret is not a good thing. By keeping it a secret, we're not helping those people who need treatment but are afraid. If just one person reads this and finally sees a doctor and lives a better, longer life, I think that's reason enough for me to write this. These medications have improved my marriage, improved the way I deal with people, and helped me do a better job at work. I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of.

Comment Smilies Just added them, thanks to this "tutorial":http://unixgal.techieswithcats.com/archives/002156.php I think it works ...

Oh, I may never return ...

Yesterday, I parked in the Alewife garage when I took the Red Line to South Station for a trip to NYC.

When I got back, I found that the fee there has increased 50 cents.

Big woo, you say. But it was apparently a problem for the person ahead of me in line to pay.

The driver pulls up and, apparently, hands the cashier $4. Then there appeared to be some discussion. Then you could see the driver rooting around in her car, and ever 5 minutes or so handing the cashier some more random coins. Either she found enough or the cashier gave up. But meanwhile the line of cars behind me backed up as far as I could see.

This reminded me of the classic "Charlie on the MTA" (this link gives a lot of little-known history about the song, check it out!), which begins:

Fire and rain The horrible "deaths":http://www.boston.com/news/packages/nightclub_fire/ in Rhode Island make it hard for me to justify writing of lighter things today. It seems so often these things happen to people who are only trying to have a good time and listen to music they like. Question: Why the hell are sprinkler systems still optional in some places of public assembly? Yes, it may cost a lot to equip old buildings. Requiring them might close down some old buildings. But we are talking 96 lives here. ... The rain today isn't helping my mood. Now in addition to lots of snow, we have lots of mud. But at least we're on a hill -- flooding is possible some places.

Holy thermometer, Batman! My Weather Pixie has taken off her big coat for the first time in weeks -- I gotta go outside now and see if it is for real.

I guess I just suck When people ask me questions, they demand immediate answers. When I ask a question, I usually don't get an answer for days, if ever. What's important to other people is always supposed to be my priority. What's important to me doesn't seem to matter to anyone. I feel about life like I used to playing pinball -- I suck at it, but I keep putting in quarters, hoping maybe someday I'll win.

Dig it Even though this storm set a "record":http://www.boston.com/news/daily/18/mass_snow.htm for Boston, it didn't seem all that hard to deal with -- maybe because it stopped snowing by Tuesday morning. It was a lot to shovel, but it was light and powdery. The main problem now is where to put the damn stuff. For next winter, either I'm getting the old snowthrower fixed or getting a "new one":http://www.ariens.com/products/sno/924116/ .

Opinions The other day I wrote a "post":http://www.3cat.com/bigcat/archives/000143.php that was mostly opposed to war with Iraq. I've been thinking how easy it is for me to sit here and write something like that, the same way that it is for the pro-war bloggers to say what they think. (And yes, I am glad we are free (at least so far) to express those opinions). We don't live in "Iraq":http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/, we're not the "U.S. soldiers":http://www.giparty.org/ who will likely fight there. Don't get me wrong, it is important in a democracy to say what you believe. I just hope we keep some perspective and know that there are some people out there who will die as a result of those decisions, and many more whose lives will be affected as mine probably won't be. In the bigger picture of course terrorists could once again bring the war home to us. This post doesn't really have a conclusion. It was just a thought that came to me on a snowy night.

And it is still early

My front steps so far. More than 6 inches so far (but very dry, light stuff). The storm is not really supposed to get going until tonight.

PS: The Weather Pixie seems unable to deal with all of this. For a minute there was a fair day, and 30 degrees shown. Now it is snowing, but the pixie is not there (maybe she's smart enough to stay indoors).

Update: Maybe it will look like this tomorrow.

Slow and nasty The storm that has pounded the Middle Atlantic is just starting to creep into Boston now. It took the front edge about 18 hours to get from New York to Boston. Very light snow so far, but apparently it intensified really fast to the south as it moved. The slow-movers are the worst -- lots of time to snow. We'll see what happens here. My wife nearly got stranded in New York yesterday -- all the trains from New York to Boston come from further south, and they were all screwed up. If you live in the Northeast I hope you are where you want to be now cuz you're probably not moving much for a while -- the storm is not supposed to let up around here until sometime Tuesday.

What are we to do? On reading a friend's account of being in Saturday's antiwar protest in New York, I find myself thinking back to the 60's-70's Vietnam War protests -- and think we may have come full circle. I was too young to confront the choices of that time directly -- I was in the last group who got draft numbers in that old draft, but no one from our year was actually drafted. But I saw it all on TV, and will always remember my dear departed father screaming at the TV during news shows -- he was a big Nixon backer, and a pretty strong hawk. I remember how as a boy at first my beliefs pretty much followed his, but over time I started to shift toward opposition to the war (as was much of the nation). I read the "New York Times editorial (registration required)":http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/15/opinion/15SAT1.html just now. I am no fan of Saddam. And if there is real evidence of weapons that can endanger us there, we do need to act. But I am still skeptical of the Bush administration. Are they really telling the truth? Back in Vietnam days the government did plenty of lying to bolster it's case -- including fabricating the key details of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that semi-legitimized the war. How do I know that the administration is not telling lies now? Moreover, I think there is a big difference between acting as a group of nations against an aggressor, and going in alone. Acting as a community does not ensure perfect decisions, but if we as the world's biggest superpower feel the right to "fix" a situation this way, what about all the other nations with a grudge? If somehow invading Iraq could magically make us all safe from worries about terrorism, I'd be for it, despite all these reservations. But I see no evidence that this war will make us safer. The terrorists are all over the world, funded from many sources (including I am certain some of our "allies" in the Middle East). Supposing we oust Saddam -- who will rule Iraq? It's probably going to pretty much be a U.S. puppet government, which will probably fall to Islamic fundamentalists unless we continue to occupy the country. In the process, many civilians will die. And our economy, the biggest source of strength for the free world (and I honestly believe that) will continue to tank. Bottom line is, we're big but if someting has to be done here we need the support of much more of the world, and we have to figure out how to get it -- or better yet, find a peaceful way out of this). And if I don't start feeling that my government is really listening on this, I might be out in the streets myself.

Rearranging the furniture I've shuffled around the looks of things here a little. I got tired of the very long column on the right side, so I split that stuff up, putting the blogrolls on the left, and everything else on the right. And I added a lion. Not sure if he will stay. If you were trying to read this page today you might have noticed all sorts of bizarre things -- I tried some things out before I put them up, but I ended up doing a lot of experimenting on the live page. The work done by Lucy, aided by Pixelsphinx, helped inspire this, but I did all the coding so don't blame them (but do tell me, please!) if it crashes your browser. I have not changed the colors yet -- if I do that I probably want to also implement skins, but that will have to wait till another day.

Boston driving directions, part 3213 My wife had a brochure for a spa that notes that it is "across from Dunkin Donuts". So I decided to search Google for that exact phrase. There are 165 Web pages containing that exact phrase -- for whatever that is worth.

Another upgrade Just upgraded to "Movable Type":http://www.movabletype.org/ 2.6, and added the "MT-Textile":http://www.bradchoate.com/past/mttextile.php and "Smarty Pants":http://www.daringfireball.net/projects/smartypants/ plugins. # Now I have # Automatic # Numbering bq. and * bullets * like * this and all sorts of other nice things, like codes for automatic URL generation and "smart quotes" These are fun toys!

Are we feeling secure now?

I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this, but the greatest contribution duct tape could make to national security is taping W's mouth shut.

Another chick lookin' good

Lucy announces her new new design and it's pretty spiffy.

There are some elements here I really like that might make it into my design sometime soon, so if so thanks in advance to Pixelsphinx too. Don't worry, it won't be a ripoff, just a tribute!

Writing, blogging, etc.

Trish has a great conversation going about writing style, blogging style, whatever you want to call it. I should write a whole entry sometime about that, but meanwhile drop over there and check it out.

Tengo frio

It's cold here. No shit, it's winter in New England.

But still, this is a bit much. We didn't really get a January thaw (even in upstate New York where I grew up that's supposed to happen). Do I not like this because I'm getting older, because my memory is so bad I can't remember that winter is long and cold in these parts, whatever, I've really had enough for this year. Maybe if I took up skiing (I did do cross-country a little a while back).

For some reason the parking lot at my current office (which thank God we are leaving in a couple of weeks) features gale-force winds most of the time.

And for a real treat, try changing the license plates on your car in the RMV parking lot in the cold (at least the sun was shining).

I have absolutely nothing new or clever to say about the cold and the snow. I moved here voluntarily. I must remember how beautiful the Charles will get come springtime. I must remember to bring my stupid knit hat so my ears don't freeze. I must remember to try to get them to fly me to California again sometime soon...

I don't mind the snow...

... what I mind is shoveling it, and brushing it off my car.

I like to look at it (at least when it's new, old dirty snow pretty much sucks). I don't mind walking in it, and I don't even mind driving in it that much (although it is nice to have a schedule where I can often avoid that).

What we need is snow that falls only on the trees and lawns, not the roads, and most especially not our driveway and steps.

Not almost famous

Clay Shirkey's article about weblog popularity fascinated me. (I found it, as usual, via Boing Boing.) He points out that the popularity of blogs follows a power-law distribution - the top 20 percent pf blogs is getting roughly 80 percent of inbound links.

One interesting - and not intuitive, at least to me - thing is that as the number of blogs increases, it makes the distribution of popularity even more uneven.

This is certainly true of my linking patterns - a good share of the blogs I link to were found from links on other blogs, not from random browsing.

Another interesting thing is that Live Journal - whose residents are often looked down upon by the snobs of the blog world - has one of the best ideas: Making it easy for its users to set up a list of friends, creating little mini-communities. Non-blog sites like Ryze also focus on community, by having friends lists and subnetworks you can join.

That's really most of the reason why I blog - as a former journalist part of me craves more readers, for sure, but the community of regular readers, those people I read all the time too, are much more important to me.

For people like myself who have long ago moved away from either their small-town homes or the old neighborhoods in cities, the Internet does provide the wonderful feature of being able to live in, or even create, your own small town.

In the newspaper world long ago, most large cities and even a lot of smaller ones had multiple papers, sometimes representing varying political views. Now most places have just one paper that generally ries to head somewhere down the middle of popular opinion, usually annoying people on both sides of the spectrum.

The saving grace of the Internet is that even if clicks get concentrated on larger sites, this should not drive the small guys out of business, since the cost of entry is so much smaller.

It will be interesting to see how all this plays out ... and by the above principle, if you are reading this you are in a small (but one hopes happy) minority.

More liberties lost?

If you are concerned about losing your rights in the nation's anti-terrorism campaign, check out an analysis of what may become "Patriot Act II".

You can argue over which steps are really necessary to battle terror, and which are not. But it is the trend that bothers me. As I've said before, I personally don't think giving up my liberties will make me rest easier at night.

This "draft" legislation might be a trial balloon designed to tell whether it will draw too much opposition. If so, it is time that we object.

(Link via boing boing.)

Peaceful

Today's snow was my favorite kind to watch - light flakes drifting down, with almost no wind. And being able to work from home and not have to drive in it - or have to shovel it until tomorrow - priceless.

Tomorrow, we'll have to deal with it. But it's fluffy so that won't be so bad. The last snow was a wet, heavy s.o.b., almost ripped out my back.

All you bloggers out there in other parts of the country, be nice to me or I will come and make it snow on you, too.

1978

The Blizzard of '78: 25 years ago today. Yeah, I was there.

I saw this one from the relative safety of Cambridge, so only by media reports did I know of the horrible fury of the storm on the coast, and needed a Globe story to be reminded that 54 people died.

But here's my own little story:

In those days a porno movie was always shown on registration day at MIT (no, I don't remember what the movie was...). I remember walking back from the movie and being astonished by how fast the snow was falling - and I grew up in upstate New York, so I was no stranger to winter.

MIT had never canceled classes before because of weather, but this didn't qualify as regular weather by anybody's standards.

I worked on The Tech, the college paper, that was supposed to come out on Tuesday. It didn't.

We worked on a four-page paper for Friday, but there was a problem: How to get all the papers back from the printer in Revere when driving was banned.

Well, there was a dire need for blood during the emergency, and MIT had always done very well in blood drives, and one was scheduled for Friday, as I recall. So the back page of our paper became a full-page ad promoting the blood drive - which hopefully helped bring out donors and got the cops to let us through.

Most of the rest of the time was pretty much being cooped up in the dorm - so many people cooped up long enough that year to have a really bad Russian flu epidemic. I had a 104 fever but the infirmary just sent me back to my room because there was no room there.

One of my suitemates had a girlfriend at Wellesley. After a few days he got impatient enough to put on some cross-country skis and head out. Somehow his trek should have inspired a winter equivalent to the Boston marathon ...

I remember how the MIT tennis bubble collapsed - and seeing pictures of the Hartford Civic Center's fall as well.

I was impressed at the way Boston and environs handled the storm - closing all the roads completely enabled many of them to be remarkably well plowed when traffic was allowed to return.

This was a lesson Chicago did not heed the next year, when the Blizzard of '79 crippled that city for weeks.

Yes, I was also there for that storm (I was at Northwestern for grad work).

I also managed to be in New Jersey for the storm that shut the Turnpike down (I think that was also a first), and of course managed to be back here for the big storm two winters ago.

I just have a knack that way....

Another blogger bummer

Apparently, someone is not being very original. Read this.

Not much to add except to note I got this link from dave.

That's the odd thing - why steal when you can just steal links like I do -:). It saves typing.

If you're having a crappy morning

You are not alone.

This seems to be one of those periods where I can't do a thing without somebody getting pissed off at me for how I did it or for doing it in the first place.

Oddly, this is not really happening at work - I think maybe that's a sign of workplace apathy - the fire has gone out of so many people that it is even hard to get in an argument with anyone (something I'm usually pretty good at).

Do you ever feel like you need a vacation - from everyone you know?

Friends?

I was organizing a ton of digital photos today, and ended up setting up a directory called "friends" - but I also noticed that I had not seen most of the people in those pictures for a long time.

I have made some new friends recently, but it seems like I lose touch with the old friends faster than I can make new ones.

I think I've tried to stay in touch with most of these people, but it doesn't seem to work. I'd like to find a way to change that...

Community in tragedy

Yesterday's Columbia tragedy was a high point for the Internet, and especially the blogging community. From the earliest point sites like scripting news relayed a great deal of information, some from major news outlets, but also a lot of informed speculation and commentary from bloggers.

And I continue to find wonderful commentary like there is no cat's entry.

When I was in the newspaper business, we often would say that stories like this are a "TV story" - by the time we came out, there was not a great deal to write that was relevant, or would be by the time the paper came out.

But yesterday the Net came up with a lot of information I didn't see on TV.

Oddly, the Internet is not really so much competition for traditional media, but a superset - everyone contributes their own skills, background and point of view.

In memory

The crew lost today on Columbia need to be remembered here partly because these days many of them are not the test pilots of old, but scientists and engineers, people not much different from me (except of course they were smarter, harder-working, better trained in both mind and body).

They took a great risk to increase our knowledge.

(Dave Winer has accumulate many links on the disaster, including a link to more links at Scott Adams)