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Lifestreaming [03 Jul 2009|09:20pm] [ mood | contemplative ] [ music | "You're Streaming Again" by The Flashbulb ] So I've been giving a lot of thought recently to the tangled web that has arisen from the organically trimmed aging world of my online presence. Blogging, microblogging, photo sharing, video sharing, comment posting, social networking, and all the other ways I appear here and there on the web have sharded across a couple dozen different services, fallback usernames, and decaying caches of former haunts. My friends, professional colleagues, aquantances, and admiring spambots are haphazardly connected to me via one service or five, and I'm less and less sure where I want to post my missives. I've spent some time thinking about the various usernames I use -- 'ert' is certainly preferable but often taken -- and the services where I have some level of presence -- LJ, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr -- and been trying to boil them down to the essence of what I want to do with them and what experience teaches me that I'll be able to do with them. The catch-all neologism for the idea of getting this all under one roof is lifestreaming, and I've been looking at some of the services that purport to help you get on top of everything. I'm someone who wants to continually take what was yesterday's bleeding edge - in this case blogging, photoblogging, and the like -- and build on it as nothing more than a well-understood platform. Having a central service that tries to give me a main interface to this morass of online socializing is a very attractive idea. I gazed at Sweetcron for a while, dreaming of an infinitely customizable online presence and seduced by its Appleesque icons, yet worried about the installation and maintenance effort required. Current signs point to Posterous and its delicious no-registration-required interface as the way forward. At the end of it all, I expect there will be some serious rebooting of this blog. Stay tuned. 2 comments|post comment

Hang gliding [20 Jun 2009|06:35pm] [ mood | relaxed ] [ music | "Learning to Fly" by Pink Floyd ] Down in North Carolina for a family reunion, a couple of miles south of Kitty Hawk, and on a whim yesterday I tried hang gliding for the first time. Really really fun. Much more fun than I expected it to be. If I found snowboarding more natural than skiing (or waterskiing, for that matter), I found hang gliding more natural than snowboarding. The thing that you've strapped yourself to wants to fly, getting off the ground is easy. Landing a bit trickier, mind you. I fell unceremoniously out of the sky a couple of times in a heap and have a few bruises to show for it. It's now very clear to me why the Wright brothers chose this part of the country to try their famed experiments: Falling on a sand dune is relatively pleasant. By the end of the afternoon, though, I'd managed to come down on my feet and not fall over in the attempt. I'll probably be trying this again. 3 comments|post comment

Google Wave [28 May 2009|10:20am] [ mood | geeky ] [ music | "Cure for Pain" by Morphine ] They just finished the Thursday morning keynote here at the Google developer conference which was mainly the initial presentation of Google Wave, which is a well thought out communications engine. Think GMail + LJ/Blogger/Wordpress + IM + Subversion + Basecamp, all with Google Maps and YouTube and Flickr etc. all built in and lots of realtime zippiness. Rosy, the auto-translating plugin, is incredibly cool. An obvious application of Google Translate, but I think it's really going to change the world. The ability to do online collaboration with people who don't speak the same language is the awesome. 1 comment|post comment

Google I/O 2009 [27 May 2009|07:59pm] [ mood | geeky ] [ music | "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton ] I'm out at the 2009 Google developer conference, and you can totally see the effect of Google's $1M+ per employee per year revenue. They have money to throw at the attendees, so they do so. And, honestly, they've done an amazing job making a conference that's aimed at software developers: They assume that most people here have laptops and/or smartphones with them, but no paper or pens. All of the sessions have power strips every few seats, the wifi is free (and heavily utilized), etc. They gave everyone free Google Android smartphones and encouraged them to activate and use them at the conference. Taking pictures of the barcodes on attendee's badges or session title slides sucks the contact info into your phone. Dress code is pretty easy-going. Overdressed East Coasters such as myself are not just wearing button-down shirts but also failing to wear jeans. There are two women wearing skirts, and I suspect that everyone here knows that number precisely. I've never seen so much source code in a keynote speech before. Video games everywhere. I'm currently sitting in a bean bag next to a couple of guys playing five-year-old Modest Mouse songs on Rock Band. There are warning signs that end "...There may also be robots armed with cameras so if you don't want to be captured on camera, please don't walk up to or talk to the robots." And they're not kidding. Unsurprisingly, the M:F ratio is somewhere between 20:1 and 50:1. It seems it's become more balanced as the day has progressed, and I'm not clear if that's deliberate. It makes my hormones scream "reproduce now or you'll never get another chance!!" 3 comments|post comment

You never call, you never write [24 Mar 2009|05:24pm] [ mood | heartbroken ] [ music | "Fortune presents gifts not according to the book" by Dead Can Dance ] So I just stopped by Quantum Books in Kendall Square, only to discover that it closed a year ago this week. I suspect this is just desserts for too much shopping at Amazon. Even Quantum's online shopping operation, which was supposed to continue functioning, is gone. So, (1) where does one now go to browse technical books in Cambridge, and (2) who has solid recommendations for a starter Python book for someone coming from Java and Perl? 11 comments|post comment

Spring! [24 Mar 2009|01:17pm] [ mood | cheerful ] [ music | "Why did you grow a beard?" by They Might Be Giants ] 5 comments|post comment

Back from Montréal [23 Mar 2009|02:29pm] [ mood | working ] [ music | "The Old Sod" by Spirit of the West ] Back from Montreal where aerynne, alethia_juturna and I visited waylay (with a nod to a completely insane travel schedule on alethia_juturna's part, but what else is new?) We saw Spirit of the West open for Great Big Sea, with the highlight being the two bands on stage at the same time, including a performance of "Political" where GBS's Alan and SOTW's John alternated singing the leads on the verses. post comment

Skin of Evil [12 Mar 2009|03:47pm] [ mood | amused ] [ music | "Comfortably Numb" by Scissor Sisters ] The U.S. government continues to wrestle with the idea of setting up a "Bad Bank" -- a place to put all the evil "toxic" crap that banks have amassed over the last few years, thereby leaving what remains of the titans of the financial sector clean, unsullied, and ready to do business. Sweet, sweet business. Haven't we seen this before, however? Sure, there was the Swedish bank rescue in the 1990s, but I feel somewhere earlier I heard about a race of titans collecting all of their evil into a single entity for easy disposal. Anyone remember how it turned out? 8 comments|post comment

A little experiment [08 Feb 2009|09:13pm] [ mood | excited ] [ music | "Fallen Snow" by Au Revoir Simone ] aerynne and I are trying an experiment this year: We scheduled this week off for skiing, but didn't decide where we were going until Thursday night. The general idea was that with really really short notice we could go to where the snow not only already was, but was predicted to be over the next week. So it turns out, after briefly flirting with Norway (and the Norwegians, oh, the Norwegians!), that we're now in Lake Tahoe as we have been so many times before. But this time it's all based on meteorological science 'n marshmallow fluff. I can't say that I've convinced myself that the weather is actually as predictible as we need it to be, but at the moment I'm sitting in an easy chair between a fire and glass of wine, the snow is pouring down outside, and aerynne, her brain still in the eastern time zone, has at 9 pm fallen asleep for the third time today. I have exceedingly high hopes that we'll arise before the dawn and make it out for first tracks, and they'll be in back bowls on deep fresh powder. 5 comments|post comment

Climate wars [02 Feb 2009|11:25am] [ mood | scared ] [ music | "Couldn't Stand The Weather" by Stevie Ray Vaughan ] CBC Radio has a program called Ideas that is currently airing a three-part series called "Climate Wars," hosted by military historian and journalist Gwynne Dyer. Here's part of his intro: About two years ago I noticed that the military in various countries, and especially in the Pentagon, were beginning to take climate change seriously. Now, it's the business of the military to find new security threats. It's also in their own self-interest, since they need a constant supply of threats in order to justify their demands on the taxpayers' money, so you should always take the new threats that the soldiers discover with a grain of salt. You know, never ask the barber whether you need a haircut. But I did start to look into this idea that global warming could lead to wars. It turned into a year-long trek talking to scientists, soldiers and politicians in a dozen different countries. I have come back from that trip seriously worried [...] I've listened to the first two parts and it's got that Canadian calmness projected onto the incredibly frightening scenarios and certainties that Dyer describes. It's also really interesting to hear climate change from a military-threat perspective (with some new-to-me bits of science thrown in -- I hadn't previously heard about the permafrost-methane problem, for example.) It's also pretty terrifying. For the rest of this week all three parts are available on their website and podcast. Highly recommended. 2 comments|post comment

Obamarama [20 Jan 2009|05:12pm] [ mood | sleepy ] [ music | "President at Last" by The Chap & Zilla ] aerynne and I are in D.C. for the inaguration. Crowds are unbelieveable. Got up at 5am to make our way in 7 miles. But there's a cool president in the white house! Well, next to the white house at the moment. 2 comments|post comment

End to U.S. Imperialism! [18 Jan 2009|02:04pm] [ mood | confused ] [ music | "Dark and Metric" by They Might Be Giants ] So, if one is to believe the egreeting card vendors desperate to spead flash animations of teddy bears far and wide, today is Metric System Day. All signs point to continued U.S. support to Myanmar and Liberia in the imperial axis-of-leaguel, but the riff-raff are getting uppity. Revolution soon, hide your yardsticks. 6 comments|post comment

Are there marks for effort? [06 Jan 2009|11:34pm] [ mood | sleepy ] [ music | "Another World" by Beborn Beton ] Tonight's Cleanse-friendly meal: Pan-Seared Ahi Tuna with Balsamic Glaze, Japanese Steakhouse Style Zucchini and Onions, and Garlicy Rice. Well, the "seared" became "cooked", the glaze was over-reduced, and the zucchini and rice were slightly overdone. But it was all reasonably tasty and next time I'll make that left turn at Albuquerque. 3 comments|post comment

As the economy sinks further into the muck... [08 Dec 2008|06:12pm] [ mood | hungry ] [ music | "Bad News" by Johnny Cash ] This morning I was flipping through the Business Week that appears to be arriving for free since The Economist sold my good name (and address) to anyone with a couple of nickels to rub in their direction. I came across the following: Media Predictions for 2009 Will these media predictions prove any more accurate than previous prognostications? [...] It gets much worse before it gets better. Marketers use the downturn to revamp (and reduce) ad spending. At least one recent, heavily leveraged media deal—Tribune, Univision, Clear Channel, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I could go on—goes bankrupt. On cue, the following shows up in my news feed today: Tribune Co. files for bankruptcy protection Owner of Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, Chicago Cubs has $13 billion in debt Feels like we're in a Joss Whedon show, and we all know how those turn out. 1 comment|post comment

Boston and St. John's [04 Dec 2008|09:20am] [ mood | awake ] [ music | "Boston and St. John's" by Great Big Sea ] I am frequently asked why I opted to move back to Massachusetts, rather than remain in Northern California or back to Toronto or somewhere entirely other. (Back to Texas just really wasn't an option). I generally reply something about appreciating the knowledge-loving culture of Boston, noting that the overheard café conversations are excellent. Recently, Sarah Vowell pointed me to this unique tidbit in the Massachusetts constitution: Chapter V, Section II. The Encouragement of Literature, etc. Wisdom, and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties; and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of the people, it shall be the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools in the towns; to encourage private societies and public institutions, rewards and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, arts, sciences, commerce, trades, manufactures, and a natural history of the country[...] Well, huh. Apparently the local character was actually deliberately intended. Meanwhile, you know something's going on back in usually cool, calm and collected Canada when it's showing up near the top of Google's worldwide news articles with reports of government turmoil and the Governor General rushing back from Europe to attend to the situation. ( Allow me to muse... ) 10 comments|post comment

A first look at senate 2010 [19 Nov 2008|11:35am] [ mood | optimistic ] [ music | "Burning Down The House" by Talking Heads ] With today's news noting that Begich has won the Alaska senate seat and Lieberman will continue to caucus with the Democrats, the Democrats stand at 56+2 in the senate with the Minnesota recount and Georgia runoff still pending. There's still a slim change they could get the 60 seat supermajority, but it's pretty unlikely. ( I thought about looking forward to 2010, however, and the possibility of further Democratic gains looms large. ) 4 comments|post comment

Election Day, pt 2 [05 Nov 2008|04:04pm] [ mood | optimistic ] [ music | "Election Day" by Arcadia ] Overall, it's bittersweet. Regular readers will remember that I have been pricing an Obama win into my stocks for weeks, if not months. It's definitely heartening to see it actually happen, but it's within expectation for me. What I had been hoping for is (1) an Obama landslide, (2) a Democratic supermajority in the senate (3) serious gains in the house (4) various ballot initiatives going in a progressive direction (5) state legislatures going Democratic. ( What actually happened? ) 9 comments|post comment

Liddy Dole's given into the dark side [31 Oct 2008|04:06pm] [ mood | aggravated ] [ music | "Dear God" by XTC ] The attack ads that Elizabeth Dole has launched against her opponent Kay Hagan erase any respect I had for Senator Dole. If I may take Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama and paraphrase it: I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. Dole says, but what her ads imply, such things as: "Well, you know that Ms. Hagan is an atheist." Well, the correct answer is: She is not an atheist. She's a Christian. She's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is: What if she is? Is there something wrong with being an atheist in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 17-year-old atheist kid believing he or she can be President? Establishing a religious litmus test for public office is a dangerous path to start down. First you bar the atheists, agnostics, and nonreligious, and nobody misses them. Then come the Pagans, Scientologists, and New Ageists, and nobody misses them. Then the Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims, and nobody misses them. Some people miss the Jews and Mormons when you get to them, but you're on a roll at this point. Then you can get rid of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Episcopalians, and Pentecostals before you just decide that everyone who isn't a Protestant shouldn't be in office. Then you can get to work on the voter registrations... 10 comments|post comment

Equal yet opposite [31 Oct 2008|02:30pm] [ mood | working ] [ music | "Jam for the Ladies" by Moby ] Every year or so I check in on the other Ert. Ert O'Hara and I are by no means the only Erts, but the others I've encountered don't seem to have quite the same Internet presence so I can't stalk them as easily, if at all. It still remains disconcerting to see posts like "Ert's Extra-Cathartic Scream & Shout & Forget Your Troubles Playlist", when I remember making no such post. aerynne and I (among others) are beta-testing a music-sharing service (last.fm or Pandora-esque -- Mac users should ping me if they're into such things), and you can make "listening rooms" named after yourself. Sometimes I find a bunch of people in my room when I'm not there, listening to stuff I have no familiarity with. It's a vaguely unsettling 21st century loss of identity sensation. So what's she up to? Rabble rousing about politics, seeing Religulous, watching Tina Fey's SNL skits, making aforementioned music playlists. In other words, still being a west coast female me. 2 comments|post comment

[29 Oct 2008|05:45pm] [ mood | working ] [ music | "The One Who Fell From Grace On The News" by Ginger ] Dear Major Media Outlet, I look forward to your coverage of election results on Tuesday night. I am writing to request that specific races not be called before their time, even if that means leaving them "too close to call" through the next day, and even if it appears that they will not change the overall direction of the larger race. Although the difference between one person or another winning the presidency is, to many, the main point of election coverage, it is also true that the eventual number of electoral votes and house or senate seats will have a material impact on how that presidency is conducted. There are bound to be states and districts across the nation that are very close races triggering automatic recounts come Wednesday morning, and I hope they remain tagged as "too close to call" while that is what they are. Yours, - ert 9 comments|post comment

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