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2010: My Year in Retweets

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/02/2010-my-year-in-retweets/

Heck, let us jump upon the social media bandwagon. If you don’t “get” Twitter then I’d say that Twitter is pretty much what you make of it. And for me, that’s a distraction where I can pop in and see if anyone I follow has come up with anything entertaining to say, and I can share a thoughtlet of what is on my mind, and then as quick as it came, Twitter is gone and I’m back to the rest of my day.

The following are entertaining bits I have seen fit to “re-tweet” and share with others during 2010, and now I’ll share them with you.

January

An earthquake in Haiti.

Jason Govig

Google announces a phone, my lunch conversation is fucked.

Keith T. Garner

My love for Friday is like a truck BEZERKER

Fake AP Stylebook

The word “diarrhea” is hard to spell. Try: transporter problems, Jackson Brown, #3, blowing the devil’s trombone.

Fart Sandwich

I bet when babies watch Girls Gone Wild, all they see are lots and lots of meals.

Kim Scarborough

I don’t want no commies in my car. No Christians either.

erickolb

Give as generously as you can to Doctors Without Borders Response and help save lives.

Barack Obama

Pres. Preval of , by phone, to you: “From the bottom of my heart & on behalf of the Haitian people, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

rands

The longer you leave that first draft of that important, complex, or controversial email on your screen, the better.

The South Butt

Tomorrow we’re doing a for (3) of our new backpacks for all going back to school this week. To enter, RT or mention @

Fart Sandwich

Remember when that shoe with the pump on it used to be cool? …Yeah, me neither.

RobKohr / Rob Kohr

Chopsticks are a suprisingly easy way to eat buttered popcorn without getting your fingers greasy.

Fake AP Stylebook

hostel/hostile – The hostel manager became hostile when he caught me screwing his son.

Neil Gaiman

For the curious: swear into a Google phone & it transcribes it as ####. But if you swear and then say “dot com” it will write what you said.

Kim Scarborough

Did you know there’s a whole Yahoo group dedicated to Charlie Chaplin fanfic?

Fake AP Stylebook

Don’t use two words when you can use one, unless those two words are “chainsaw duel” because that’s awesome, dude.

Fake AP Stylebook

“Playing” for engaging in sports (e.g., playing baseball); “sporting” for having an erection (e.g., sporting wood).

Kim Scarborough

I wonder if somewhere there is a group of enthusiastic Avery junkies, who get all excited when a new envelope is announced.

Mike Magin

I’m hoping that we see widespread DRM-free e-books before the paper book dies out.

February

A blizzard in Brooklyn. We also watched on the news as a 3′ tsunami hit Hawaii after Chile’s earthquake.

Adm. Mike Mullen

Stand by what I said: Allowing homosexuals to serve openly is the right thing to do. Comes down to integrity.

Fart Sandwich

I bet Greek people don’t make good arsonists because every time they torch up a place, they shout, “OPA!”

RJ B.

sasha points out that .plan is the twitter of the late 70s

Fake AP Stylebook

It’s better to plagiarize from Encarta than from Wikipedia, because people actually read Wikipedia.

ModCloth

Little kids reenact Jersey Shore. Have you seen this yet? It’s hilarious, even if you don’t watch the show! HR

Faithy

I like deal breakers: “If he can’t figure out the public transportation system, well … I don’t want you dating him.”

jenny bento

Chicagoans! The weather outside is beautiful right now! Get out here!

Fake AP Stylebook

In stories about celebrity infidelity, feign surprise.

OkCupid

“Americans are more into oral sex later in life, but Iowa City & Birmingham are definitely ahead of the curve.”

March

We provided foster care for four adorable kittens.

The Democrats passed health care reform, and there was much rejoicing, or something. Since everyone hates it I guess it is a successful compromise.

Joe Latone

The retweet is gaining power, like Birdman flying into the sun.

rands

When you say “Let’s roll up our sleeves”, I hear “I don’t want to get my sleeves dirty”.

The Onion

BREAKING: Sen. Jim Bunning Going Mailbox-to-Mailbox Removing Unemployment Checks

Guy Clark

Amusingly enough, I really hate adverbs.

rands

Things I learned from writing: Never ever ever never ever try to write/edit an article, chapter, whatever if it’s not speaking to you.

Nathan Rabin

Holy shit, MY YEAR OF FLOPS has a release date: October 19th!

juliekang

Comrades! The revolutions begins tomorrow at dawn! Prepare the re-education camps! (via @)

Rob DenBleyker

I enjoy the look of confusion on cashiers’ faces when I say “keep the change” after paying with credit card

For Animals

The 4 kittens rescued last week are doing well in a foster home, but they can only care for them until Friday….

kenyatta cheese

thinking of going around town painting the inside of deep potholes a bright yellow in order as a warning to other cyclists.

Evan

Accidental retweet.

April

I took Mei to Europe. We visited London, Paris, Lyon, Rome, and Venice. Then the volcano erupted in Iceland, so we visited Florence, and camped out at Lido, near Rome’s airport.

We also made it out to visited Dad and Gwen in Colorado, and Mom and Grandma visited us in Brooklyn.

Poland lost much of its executive branch in a plane crash, and BP began spilling oil into the gulf of Mexico.

May

Mei learned to ride a bicycle. I got to tour the New York’s abandoned “City Hall” subway station. We began fostering two older “rescue” kittens, Maxwell and Maggie, in an attempt to “socialize” them to living with people. Mei’s folks visited to attend her graduation from residency, and a week later I took her to Coney Island.

On May 19, a young man, Ronald Glover, was murdered around the corner from our apartment. BP continued spilling oil in to the Gulf of Mexico.

Doug MacMillan

Peter Rojas, Matt Cutts, and Paul Kedrosky deactivated their Facebook accounts. Any other recent high-profile Facebook fleers?

Fake AP Stylebook

In New England, a “clowder” refers to milk-based felines. In Manhattan, it refers to tomato-based cats.

NY Transit Museum

Any weekend plans? Reservations available for this Saturday’s Old City Hall Station Tour. Valid membership required. Call (718) 694-1867.

Sarrah Palin

I’m so heartbroken about this spill in the gulf situation. All those animals. They’re polluting our oil.

PostSecret

“Write drunk; edit sober.” -Hemingway

Onion Jobs

Hiring a Front End Developer @ in Chicago.

PATH

Per Service between HOB & WTC is suspended in both directions, due to police activity.

Promoted Tweet

GOOGLE WAVE: NOW THE GENERAL PUBLIC IS FREE TO NOT USE WHAT TECH INSIDERS HAVEN’T BEEN USING FOR MONTHS

Sockamillion

STRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETCH oh come now this belly doesn’t rub itself DO I HAVE TO DROP ALL THE HINTS AROUND HERE

Slate

Daley to reporter “If I put this [gun] up your butt, you’ll find out how effective [Chicago anticrime initiative] is”

benjyfeen

Today’s Google doodle: hit Insert Coin twice for 2-player. Other player’s control keys: a,w,s,d.

Amanda C. Peterson

Surprising quote: “You don’t have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.” — Barry Goldwater

Kevin Pereira

ABC 7 breaking news tonight: reactions to the Lost finale. MY reaction? THERE’S OIL SPEWING INTO THE OCEAN, YOU ASSHOLES!

Keith T. Garner

Things I love about my job: I will probably never lose 7 teeth while performing work duties

92YTribeca

One of our coworkers got her first French kiss from an actual French man – POINTS FOR AUTHENTICITY!

Neil Gaiman

Vaguely disappointed to learn that BP’s “top kill procedure” will leave its entire executive strata alive.

The Onion

Entire Facebook Staff Laughs As Man Tightens Privacy Settings

June

One weekend after brunching at Two Boots in Park Slope, Mei and I were walking through Prospect Park. I asked her to stop, got down on a knee and asked if she would marry me. With tears in her eyes, she accepted my proposal, and we kissed.

BP continued spilling oil in to the Gulf of Mexico, while we watched world football games on television.

Stephen Colbert

two wrongs don’t make a right. but i’m determined to find out how many wrongs do

Fart Sandwich

My doctor made me stop drinking for health reasons. I guess antifreeze is THAT bad for you, but gosh, do I miss that sweet, sweet, taste.

Keith T. Garner

BUTTS BUTTS BUTTS (_(_) BUTTS(_)_)

Stephen Colbert

george w. bush has a facebook page. i bet he’s clearing a lot of brush in farmville

Eugene

Looking for QA and IT candidates for Palantir in Palo Alto. $10,000 to you if someone you refer by 6/30 is hired.

Fart Sandwich

You know hipsters and yuppies have overrun your neighborhood when you long for the time gunfire put you to sleep.

jenny bento

Nothing makes me want to get a backalley sterilization like brunch with uncontrolled children.

jenny bento

these new iphone features are enough to make me ignore all those factory workers killing themselves.

Sarrah Palin

Way to go Chicago Redskins on winning Stanley’s Cup!

New York City 311

Donate Blood. Find out where and when:

Fart Sandwich

“Old farts never die…they just fade away.” -General MacFarthur.

BP Public Relations

England vs. USA recap: “Football”: England 1 – USA 1 : “Crapping in the other’s Gulf”: England 54 – USA 0 ^Tony

Jesus Christ

Went through three cases of water. Pretty wasted right now.

Paul and Storm

[S] Google Wave is finally out of of Beta! Now EVERYONE can not understand what you’re supposed to do with it.

Matthew Inman

All these pedantic assclowns are tweeting at me that the proper pluralization of LEGO is LEGO bricks. Fuck that. Multiple LEGO = LEGOs

Dorian Taylor

Whenever I imagine software people focusing on usability I think about a bunch of chefs sitting around discussing edibility.

Stephen Colbert

in honor of oil-soaked birds, ‘tweets’ are now ‘gurgles.

Google Voice

Goodbye invites, hello open sign-ups:

oldfunnyjoker

This World Cup is working out like WW2 – France have forfeited, the USA turned up late, and England are left to fight the Germans!

Stephen Colbert

how long before someone destroys pandora.com for its unobtanium.com

MegE

I heard the CEO of AT&T got married recently. The service was great but the reception was terrible.

Dan Coulter

Steve Jobs says that every phone drops reception when you hold it. Funny, my Nexus One doesn’t.

Patrick Whang

I am now a proud/delusional stock holder of tesla motors.

Jason Govig

Farmville is such a shitty-ass stupid game (and I can say this without playing it), that I don’t even want to read about why people play it.

Sarrah Palin

Big Announcement today! I have converted to one of those Muslims. What can I say, I like myself a good AK-47.

July

Mei and I trekked to Hoboken, New Jersey, to watch the fireworks.

In Oakland, BART police officer Johannes Mehserle received a light sentence of manslaughter for his shooting death of Oscar Grant. Oakland, to its credit, failed to riot. Mid-way through the month, BP stopped spilling oil in to the Gulf of Mexico.

As Mei was finished with her residency, and I was still employed by a San Jose-based company, we prepared for our move back to Northern California.

Jeffrey Rowland

What’s up with those NO FARMS NO FOOD stickers? HELLO? we NEED farms and food to survive, numb nuts.

Fart Sandwich

I just bought a brand of rum called Mount Gay. That’s usually what I do when I drink too much rum, so it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Max Levchin

“We’ll distribute great local deals to our audience” is the business model meme of the year.

Fake AP Stylebook

Take care not to screw up people’s lives with the advice column. That’s a job for the horoscopes.

Feisty Elle

Our office left staff out early on account of the verdict reading. Hope everyone’s safe and keeping a cool head in Oakland.

SFBART

Minor northbound delays at Hayward due to a medical emergency. Crowding at other stations has eased.

doomsey

hah! “Copying homework is a leading indicator of becoming a business major,” Pritchard says. ( via slashdot)

Bruce Banner

HULK NOT KNOW WHY MYSQL PICK WRONG INDEX. HULK KNOW HOW TO GET RIGHT INDEX. HULK FORCE!

OkCupid

New blog post! We checked data on 1M users and found lies on sex, height, & pic age. Yes, we know you’re shocked.

drewtoothpaste

Any viral marketing plan by Old Spice should have started with not making Old Spice smell like a nursing home.

Dan Linder

I just cat | cc and get it right the first time.

Fake AP Stylebook

Never say anything about a colleague in a private e-mail that you wouldn’t put in print, since it’s going to end up there anyway.

August

ROAD TRIP! We drove all of our belongings in a Penske rent-a-truck from New York City to Mountain View, CA, stopping in Chicago and Pueblo, CO along the way.

So, how does working from home compare with working from the office? Working from home allows greater productivity, because you skip the commute and can just grind away for several hours with few interruptions. It can also get a bit lonely at times. At the office, I’m not as productive as I was at the home office, but I get more opportunities to collaborate with colleagues: sharing skills and refining ideas. I’d say that for technology, a 40-80% telecommute could be ideal, but I haven’t had the chance to experiment, as our first Mountain View apartment was a one-bedroom.

Fart Sandwich

Apparently there’s a new Mad Max movie coming out. It’s going to be titled: “Mel Gibson’s Real Life.”

Fart Sandwich

If Stephen Hawking had a blues album, it’d be called, “Stephen Hawking Speaks the Blues.”

The Onion

Opinion: If I Hadn’t Found Jesus, I’d Feel Pretty Shitty About My Crimes

ju

Just OH: ” How many SEO experts does it take to change a light bulb, lightbulb, light, bulb, lamp, lighting, switch, sex, xxx, hardcore?”

Bram Cohen

At BitTorrent we got our engineering culture back by canning everyone who’d ever said we were a media company.

Google Calendar

To all the south paws out there, happy Left Hander’s Day!

Todd Lappin

WiFi Then Fly: SFO announces that free public Wifi now available throughout the airport, two weeks ahead of schedule. (via press release)

Anil Dash

It’s Friday night… Girl, I’ma tug your Spanx off.

erickolb

Unskippable previews on a retail DVD are still bullshit.

Stas Miasnikou

The main idea of “Inception”: if you run a VM inside a VM inside a VM inside a VM, everything will be very slow

almightygod

To most Christians, the Bible is like a software license. Nobody actually reads it. They just scroll to the bottom and click “I agree.”

drewtoothpaste

Playing Good Cop Bad Cop with my daughter. I slammed my hand down on the table, screaming, “You goddamn well know where Waldo is! Tell us!”

Stephen Colbert

Why does Mexico need gay marriage? We already have a gay Mexico– Spain.

lukkhacoder

@ It’s pains to see that Redfin does not have Walkscore integration while ZipRealty does.

Anil Dash

Wait ’til folks discover the default location for check-ins on Foursquare Places is the ground zero mosque.

Fake AP Stylebook

It is perfectly acceptable to split an infinitive, especially if you haven’t brought enough for everybody.

Anil Dash

Can’t wait until Facebook decides to clone Gmail, but with the default setting being that everyone can read your inbox.

David Friedman

Just got my Web Is Dead issue of Wired. It came several days after I read all about it plus pro and con arguments and analyses. On the web.

Sarrah Palin

It warms my heart to see so many conservatives fighting for the rights of white people to use the N-word. You go girl!

Engadget Mobile

Exclusive: T-Mobile G2 in the wild!

The Onion

In Focus: Midwest Peace Talks Shattered By Illinois Toll-Booth Bombing

Jean Teasdale

719 followers already?!!? Wow, that’s like 300 more ppl than my entire high school was! Color me amazed!

Todd Lappin

Airline Trivia Fun Fact.: Quantas is an acronym for Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services Ltd.

Ryan Pequin

ok guys i’m going to bed for the day now. when i wake up i want to have 2000 followers. make it happen, twitter.

Stephen Colbert

By reading this tweet, you have earned a masters in communication from Stephen Colbert “University.” Standard text messaging rates apply.

Fart Sandwich

I like that video game websites have Army ads on them, because recruiting fatasses in mom’s basement is clearly their target demographic.

Fake AP Stylebook

Always remember, an anagram for “newspaper ombudsman” is “mumps worsen a bedpan.”

Camron Assadi

The end of the Mayan calendar reads “Palin-Beck 2012”

September

Sarrah Palin

It really does bothers me when I hear the word “retarded” used as an insult. People who do that are so gay.

The Onion

8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live

Rachel Weber

What does a vegetarian zombie eat? Graaaaaains!

Phineas

I assume everyone who thinks Progressivism is destroying America will be reporting for their 12-hour shift at the unregulated mine today.

Jeff Uphoff

Interesting take: “I find it hard to believe that sports facilities are publicly funded when health care is not.” –Dan Gould.

drewtoothpaste

Thanks for the suggestion, Amazon, but I don’t want to use “Drew’s Disappointing Career” as my Pay Phrase.

Rob DenBleyker

There’s a bar mitzvah in my pants and Jew are invited

Robert Reich

The midterms will depend on which is bigger — the “enthusiasm gap” (helping Republicans) or the “extremist gap” (hurting them).

Mike McCue

Finally saw Inception. Loved it. Or at least I dreamed I did.

Ryan Pequin

i hate when i try to find something online so i can steal it and it isn’t there. what good is the internet if i can’t steal everything ever?

Cobra Commander

What’s on my mind? Just killed Facebook. Now the world won’t know what you ate for lunch! COBRA!

Dolly

Facebook users are roaming the streets in tears, shoving photos of themselves in people’s faces and screaming ‘DO YOU LIKE THIS? DO YOU??’

emaland

I bet Mavis Beacon *hates* the iPad

Fart Sandwich

When a delicate situation arises, I like to handle it with kid gloves. The kid gloves I got from Michael Jackson.

rands

When you say “Executive Coach”, I hear “Expensive common sense”.

David McKendrick

There should be an alcoholic beverage named the ‘sabbatical’.

October

We made it to Wisconsin for a wedding of one of Mei’s medical school friends.

Those Chilean miners got rescued from the bowels of the Earth, and there was much rejoicing.

Matthew Inman

If you do this in an email, I hate you

Peter Griffin

I’m pretty tired of these kids running lemonade stands acting like they’ve never even heard of vodka before

erickolb

Using the command line is like having a frank conversation with your OS. The GUI’s a layer of passive-aggressive bullshit keeping you apart.

Justin

“You don’t have to be good to succeed. You just gotta be the least shitty option. Example: We’re eating at The Olive Garden.”

Flying With Fish

My 5 year old son just watched a show on women helo pilots in the US Navy & asked “Dad, can boys do that too?” … I loved that :0)

Kevin Mitnick

Saw social network. Zuckerberg hacked into Harvard and got academic probation. I got 5 years. What’s wrong with the picture?

Jason Jordan

Today is 10/10/10 NOT 10/10/10 you stupid Americans.

Jeff Atwood

is to forums as Wikipedia is to Britannica.

Keith T. Garner

It was jut pointed out to me that thanks to the Internet the porn singularity has occurred. We are in a post-porn-scarcity world.

Stephen Colbert

Spent my week off doing some early trick-or-treating in the Caribbean. Yachters sure are generous when you’re wearing a pirate costume.

Paul Ford

Please stop “engaging” with the web.

Jason Brooks

So Linux is dead, Microsoft is dead, Java is dead, Flash is dead, the Web is dead, and MySpace has a new logo!

Fake AP Stylebook

When writing about Kanye West, please realize that you’re just encouraging him.

Fart Sandwich

Whenever I leave the house, I feel like I’m forgetting something. By the time I’m in the backseat of the cop car, I think, “Clothes!”

Anthony

I like when a cat puts a fish in its mouth, then pulls out the skeleton. Thought it was only in cartoons but then I saw a real cat do it

November

San Francisco won the World Series. Fans torched the city. I wish we would stop spending public money to subsidize professional sports.

I had a chance to attend the “LISA 2010” sysadmin conference . . . in San Jose. Met a lot of nice sysadmins.

For Thanksgiving, we visited Mei’s family in Hawaii. This was my first visit. Nice place! There was much feasting, and we selected a venue for the wedding, and set a date in 2011.

When we got home, we took receipt of a notice from the landlord giving us three days to pay or quit. The deadline had passed. I sent a letter requesting an explanation.

Angela Tung

thank god the world series is over. now i don’t have to deal with bright orange douches & douchettes on the CalTrain for another season.

The Onion

Remember to take the day off to vote. And the day before, to psyche up. And the morning after, to dry out.

Mike Monteiro

This is EXACTLY why marijuana should be legal.

Fake e-Etiquette

If a Facebook friend request has been pending for a long time, politely accept with a message detailing your recent mining job in Chile.

Brian Lynch

Meg Whitman discovered the position of governer does not have a “Buy it Now” option.

SV Transit Updates

RT @ No schedules for SB trains. All SB are local & depart when full (every 15-20 min) as of 5:30pm.

Stephen Colbert

If the cold weather is getting you down, just change the month on your watch to June and go for a jog on the beach!

A. Rich

beware of heroes as overloaded single points of failure. create situations where heroes are not necessary.

Philip J. Hollenback

My last OSCON & USENIX were 90% mac laptops. looks more like 70% macs. Everyone else better be running linux!

Stephen Colbert

Times are so tough that IHOP is now I-OP. The house part was foreclosed on.

Anil Dash

I always slightly resent being asked to justify why I don’t drink, smoke, do drugs or practice a religion. I’m the *default* setting!

Mitch Kapor

I just deactivated my Facebook account. Terminally fed up with constant privacy encroachments.

Jorge Mancheno

Penn Jillette calls the cops on the TSA. Amazing.

Saint Aardvark

SVN front end: displaying dates as “77 days ago” is NOT helpful.

Matt Mullenweg

There was a wedding on my @ flight to New York! The captain flew briefly over Canadian airspace so two gentleman could marry.

Bill Stiteler

I propose that instead of the Freedom Touch, TSA make us dance. Because as George Michael tells us, guilty feet have got no rhythm.

Todd Lappin

Hot Wheels: Artist Chris Burden combines Mattel toy cars, Lego, and Lincoln Logs to create world-class kinetic art:

Casey Stratton

Pope says condoms OK to prevent AIDS. In other news I just got a new Trapper Keeper and can’t wait for NYE 1985!

Phil Temples

“This is America. We don’t have adult conversations. We have Twitter.” -unknown

Paul Smith

Any time a movement is being driven by libertarian bloggers, it’s time to get off that bus.

John Halcyon Styn

“It is scary how much false attribution of quotes occurs on Twitter.” – Mark Twain

Anil Dash

Hey I’ve been lined up in front of this Circuit City since Thursday. Any idea when the doorbusters start?

jezhumble

Just occurred to me: there is more address space in my credit card number than in IPv4

Pat Sajak

Had my ego examined and certified by State of California. Now allowed to drive alone in car pool lane.

Wesley Nonapeptide

When I start thinking I’m an unparalleled loser, I just browse Craigslist Singles listings. I feel way better about myself now.

Kyle VanderBeek

The summaries of the report seem pretty clear to me: Let’s implement “Don’t ask, don’t give a damn” and move on.

Barack Obama

Confident that our troops will adapt to a repeal of DADT and remain the best led, best trained, best equipped fighting force in the world.

December

The landlord never answered my letter, but instead filed a civil suit of unlawful detainer against us. I talked to a bunch of people in Virginia to establish that they had made a billing error and undercharged our November rent, and they wanted me to pay the difference, plus a late fee, plus re-pay the December rent, plus their legal fees. I talked to some lawyers who indicated that we had a good case, so I compiled an answer, and am looking forward to the hearing.

However, the stress of worrying over an eviction proceeding over the holidays was a bit much, so we took the opportunity to seek out and move to a bigger apartment in a nicer complex. Since nobody wants to move the week before Christmas, they gave us the first month’s rent free.

Mei was notified that she had passed the medical Board Exam for which she had been studying since finishing her residency. To say that she was elated would be an understatement.

Congress repealed “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and there was much rejoicing.

We made it home to Chicago for the holidays. There was much eating and visiting family and friends.

bmoyles

Wonder if the key to making millions is to become an IPv6 migration specialist

Keith T. Garner

@ My penis is

Jamie Wilkinson

Awesome URL of the day:

The Onion

Julian Assange Fired From IT Job At Pentagon

NASA Ames

No more guessing! Astrobiology announcement starts now on NASA TV

Fake e-Etiquette

If a horny local single invites you to chat, it is polite to make light conversation until the horniness subsides.

Jonathan Coulton

YOU GUYS WHAT DO YOU DO IF YOU FORGET YOUR SLEEP NUMBER!? I CAN’T TELL IF THIS BED IS TOO HARD OR TOO SOFT!!

Dave Paola

Security and freedom will always be at odds, both in our American society and inside remote interactive python shells.

Michael Gurski

when it gets to the point i ignore alerts because they’re the new “normal”, it’s time to redo my threshholds…

Randy Duax

Wikileaks has unpublished info on UFOs!

Christy Ann

It’s nice of Universal Studios to have a “child swap” area, so if you decide you don’t like the kid you brought, you can get a better one!

Andreas Olsson

More and more of tweets are retweets. Not entirely sure on whatever that is a good or a bad thing.

Russell Nagle

To: the man reading to his daughter on @ (including all the silly voices). You sir are full of win.

Anil Dash

Don’t be assholes about Tumblr’s outage; Shit happens, & then it gets fixed. Meanwhile, *WRITE* a blog post instead of just quoting one.

RJ B.

seriously, ubuntu. it’s like you’ve picked all the ugly colors in the rainbow. bruise purple, off-brand dreamsicle orange.

phillip torrone

“any sufficiently advanced hobby is indistinguishable from a job” – from a reader, nice.

Fart Sandwich

It’s true, what they say. You really can never go back home again. Especially if you’ve burned it down in a drunken rage.

Joe Lieberman

Senator Reid told me he will “Rule 14” the free-standing repeal so it skips cmte and can come directly to the Senate floor.

Conan O’Brien

The fear of getting stuck in a chimney is called santaclaustrophobia. I wrote that joke when I was eight, and it still holds up.

Al-Qaeda

Just noticed Twitter keeps prompting me to “Add a location to your tweets”. Not falling for that one.

Kevin McPhillips

Share government’s secrets, go to jail. Share normal people’s secrets, TIME man of the year!

Dan Wright

KLINGON CHRISTMAS CAROL HAS LOTS OF YELLING

Anil Dash

On the plus side, all you people who’ve skated by on auto-posting your Delicious links to your blog are gonna have to start writing again.

Zack McQueen

Train operator: “Next stop, Hayward Park! Home of… uuh K-Mart. Good Christmas shopping there I guess. Yeah. Hayward Park” I love caltrain

Fart Sandwich

I guess CNN said Morgan Freeman died, then retracted the statement, which means he’s probably just a zombie. I’m cool with that.

Philip J. Hollenback

Dave & Busters is basically Chuck E. Cheese’s for grownups, right?

Anil Dash

Thank you to all the veterans who served our country even while it asked you to deny your identity. We owe you.

walter kirn

What do you call a gay US Army officer? Sir.

Andrew Schick

Cartooning advice: draw with a spy/thriller movie in the background. The musical score makes your sketches seem way more important.

Douglas Karr

Nothing quite brings out the spirit of the Holiday Season as much as tons of unnecessary & the subsequent unsubscribes.

Wesley Nonapeptide

If you are selling a service online and do not have an “About Us” page with real names and pictures of employees I will not buy from you

Philip J. Hollenback

Remember: if you are naming a mail server, ‘newman’ is an excellent choice.

Joe Schmitt

I don’t mean to brag, but I’m so old I can remember when blankets didn’t have sleeves.

snipe ツ

Why are Assembly programmers always soaking wet? They work below C-level.

Brad Fitzpatrick

Called AT&T (with a phone!) to cancel antiquated Yellow Pages delivery. They offered CD-ROM(!!) delivery as alternative. wtf.

Feisty Elle

One of the things I miss about China is that I could actually peek over people’s shoulders! :)

Verified ✔ Brian

I just got kicked out of Barnes & Noble for putting all the Bibles in the fiction section.

Steve Martin

The new year is almost here. I hope I can remember to stop writing 1998 on my personal checks.

rstevens

Just passed a defunct business called El Delicioso Hot Dog Express. Maybe I could steal the sign and open a male brothel.

2010 was a good year for me and mine. I hope that 2011 is a good year for you and yours.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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Technical

Automation is a Process

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/05/how-i-automate/

ACM has a nice article on “soft skills” for Systems Administrators. I’m digging on their advice for automation:

Automation saves time both by getting tasks done more quickly and by ensuring consistency, thus reducing support calls.

Start with a script that outputs the commands that would do the task. The SA can review the commands for correctness, edit them for special cases, and then paste them to the command line. Writing such scripts is usually easier than automating the entire process and can be a stepping stone to further automation of the process.

A simple script that assists with the common case may be more valuable than a large system that automates every possible aspect of a task. Automate the 80 percent that is easy and save the special cases for the next version. Document which cases require manual handling, and what needs to be done.

There have been times in my career when I have felt that people look at automation as a one-off task. “Write a script to automate this task.” Other times I have been asked how I go about automating things, and my answer is that automation isn’t a task so much as an iterative process:

  1. I try to do the task at least once, maybe a few times.
  2. Along the way I document what I had to do to get the job done.
  3. From there, I follow the documentation, and refine edge cases as I go.
  4. After that I’ll write a script, and get it working. (do)
  5. I revise the documentation to explain how to use the script. (document)
  6. And then, I use the script to complete requests, fixing the script when it fails. (refine)

Often enough I have been called upon to help another group automate something. That is a little trickier because I may never get the chance to do the task. Hopefully the other group has written some documentation, otherwise I’ll have to tease it out of them. The whole refinement process is the most obviously collaborative. I’ll document “use the script . . . it should do this . . . if it does something else, send me details.”

There is also the question of what-is-worth-automating. I believe it is the “Practice of System and Network Administration” which breaks tasks in to four buckets: frequent-easy, frequent-difficult, infrequent-easy, infrequent-difficult. You get the most payoff by focusing your automation on the frequent tasks. Easier tasks are generally easier to automate, so go ahead and start there, then turn your focus on the frequent-yet-difficult tasks. If you regard automation as an iterative process, then infrequent tasks are that much harder to automate. This is doubly true when the task is sufficiently infrequent that the systems have a chance to evolve between task execution. Infrequent tasks tend to be adequately served by well-maintained documentation in lieu of an automated process.

A last note for infrequent tasks. Part of the difficulty for these can be a combination of remembering to do them, and finding the correct documentation. One approach to “automating” an infrequent task would be to write a script that files a request to complete the task. This request should of course include a pointer to the documentation. For example, I have a cron job which sends me an e-mail to complete a monthly off-site backup for my personal web site. The e-mail contains the list of commands I need to run. (And yes, the daily local database backups are executed automatically.)

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Testimonials

Hunting in New York City

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/07/the-sartorialist-hunts-photos/

Thanks to Michael Sippey, I just watched a short film from Intel on Scott Schuman, better known as The Sartorialist.

The man spends a few hours in the morning posting to his blog, and the rest of the day wandering the streets of New York City, his senses keen for prey, which he captures with the bravery of asking a stranger if he can take their photo.

How does he pay the rent? The video doesn’t get in to that. For me it is enough to see a guy has found his particular thing, that he’s in his element, and that he is this human archetype, the lone hunter wandering his territory in search of a prize.

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About Me, Sundry, Testimonials

Missing

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/11/missing/

I have that uneasy feeling that I am forgetting something.  I guess it may have something to do with the fact that after having resigned herself to my loyalty to my beat up old round-the-world college backpack, Mei had me empty it so she could take it in for repairs as a birthday present.  Subtract that missing element from the new apartment I’m still unpacking in to after the holidays . . .

Or its that yesterday I spent some time at the hospital visiting a friend from older days, hanging out with his folks and keeping them company while their son, my age, drifted in and out of sleeping off the stroke he had on Friday.  I remember the time spent in Colorado when it was Dad’s turn to shake off his own stroke.

And then there’s the Congressman shot clear through her left lobe.  I listen attentively when they explain that, as with my friend and with my father, the left is where language is.  One question is whether there is motor control in the right hand, since the hand is controlled next door from language.

I worry about my friend, but I know he will be okay, one way or another.  One way he won’t be able to work, and may even need some personal assistance.  Another way is that between his youth, spirit, and clean living, he will rehabilitate so well that years from now he will have difficulty convincing people who hadn’t seen it that he had once had a stroke.

Only time will tell.  For now his folks are taking turns sleeping in the reclining chair next to his bed in the critical care.  The son is there to rest and cooperate with the Doctors.  The parents are there because there really is nowhere else in the world they can be right now.  They attend to the details of managing their son’s life and care while he is down.  I worry more about them, because I have some idea of where they are, and their needs can be better understood without a medical degree.

That may be it.  I feel like I am missing something because instead of the hospital I am headed to the office.  I would rather wait around at the hospital.  Fortunately my friend and his family are inundated by visitors, and dropping by for a while in the evening after work, I won’t be in the way.

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Sundry

Tired

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/12/tired/

I was up ’til 1am working on some diagrams to help illustrate a book. At 5:30am the cat started jumping on us for breakfast. That’s not right, so I expressed my disapproval and locked her out of the bedroom.

But I had to hop out of bed and engage her a few more times with the spray bottle before she stopped trying to dig through the door.

Then she started crying. And I worried that maybe the neighbors might complain.

Princess Maggie and her sidekick Maxwell.

I’m sure kids are worse.

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Good Reads, Letters to The Man, News and Reaction, Testimonials

Elder on a Bike

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/14/bike-changed-a-lidf/

Last month I “cut and copied” the following letter printed in the Palo Alto Daily News. (Or I think its called the Daily Post now.) Now I shall paste, transcribe and share:

The text reads:

"Bike changed a life"

Bike changed a life

Dear Editor: A recent letter on “bikes vs. cars” stated that the over-50 crowd was “not about to go out and buy a bicycle” to replace their cars. Read on. Three years ago, I got in my car to go to an appointment and discovered that I had a dead battery. Frustrated (my wife had our other car) I slammed the car door only to notice right above me was my son’s old mountain bike hanging from the garage rafters.

I got it down — both tires were flat — pumped them up and rode off to my appointment.

Until that moment, I had not been on a bike in 40 years. After three or four blocks I wondered why it had taken me so long to get back on a bike. It was fantastic!

Several days later, I purchased my own bike on Craigslist and was soon riding to and from work — 15 miles round trip — taking the bus on days it was too cold or to dark. I’ve lost weight and never felt better.

After two months, my wife and I realized we could get by with one car, so we sold my car and used the money to put solar panels on our house. I now pay nothing for electricity. We’ve lowered our carbon footprint significantly. I’m 57 years old.

John Ummel
Redwood City

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About Me, Photo-a-Day

Help Yourself Lemons!

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/18/help-yourself-lemons/

Ah heck let us try a photo-a-day thing, like Keith!

Even though they look like oranges

I’m starting on my 35th birthday, so . . . there ya go. Maybe I can keep this up all year.

Mei made lemon ice cream from the lemons, which you might have tasted at yesterday’s party.

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Sundry

Happy Birthday to Me!

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/18/i-can-has-35-years/

Big thanks to Mei for baking a cake and hosting a party and putting up with me most days. Gratitude as well to friends who came by and made it a nice party last night.

The Birthday Cake

The Birthday Cake

I had to open the patio door to help clear the smoke from the room. Next year I’ll ask for a fire extinguisher for Christmas.

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About Me, News and Reaction, Quotes, Sundry

Stock Market Madness

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/18/what-goes-down-goes-up/

The market has been doing well lately, but even I am surprised.

Edison stock ticker

Back in March 2009 when things were looking their bleakest, I scratched together less-than-my-usual-amount of cash and bought shares in a market index. On that occasion, QQQQ (Nasdaq 100) at $28.17/share. Today I noticed that, at $57, that stock has more than doubled in value since I bought it.

Three things come to mind.

1) Yay me! (Though, I have seen plenty of my money evaporate in stocks, so I won’t get too smug.)

2) Warren Buffet’s advice, to “be greedy when others are scared, and scared when others are greedy.” Since people are getting greedy, I shouldn’t feel too bad selling stock at this height to cover wedding expenses.

3) My perpetual ambivalence about the stock market as a gambling parlor that doesn’t reflect true economic value, but is really a bunch of rascals trying to trick each other. The real value in our economy is in the workers and the planet, and the stock market on a good day is an ethically blind attempt to influence the direction in which the workers will direct their work.

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Photo-a-Day

Power Tools

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/19/power-tools/

Clearcuttin'

The NetOps guys are even weirder than SysOps people. Note the Cisco dunce cap.

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Technical, Technology, Testimonials

G2 vs G1

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/20/g2-vs-g1/

In a nutshell . . .

The G2 is fast as heck.  It has all the cool new Android apps, and T-Mobile let’s you do tethering out of the box.  We moved our apartment last month and setting up a wireless access point on my phone was braindead easy and plenty fast while we waited for the DSL installation.  Everything works faster, and the battery life is better to boot.

The keyboards has a generally nice feel to it.  But . . .

The biggest drawback is the lack of a number row on the keyboard.  Really irritating to have to press ALT to type numbers.  Entering “special” characters is a bitch-and-a-half.  For example, to type a < you have to type ALT-ALT-long-press-j.  WTF?  Also, I miss the scroll wheel.  There is a button on the phone that sometimes-but-not-always works as a directional pad to surf through a text field but I have learned to stab my thumb at the screen until I manage to land the cursor where I want it.  (What I really miss is the Sidekick 2 direction pad.)

It is a very very nice phone with a short list of dumb shortcomings.

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Photo-a-Day

Dusk on the San Francisco Bay Trail

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/20/dusk-on-the-san-francisco-bay-trail/

Looking East, towards the rising moon.

This is about half way home. More beautiful in person.

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Photo-a-Day

Caltrain Goes Zoom!

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/21/caltrain-goes-zoom/

ZOOOOOOOOM!!

On a recent dusky evening. I like the bit between the upper windows, where the ridged side blurs in to the smooth area around the windows.

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Photo-a-Day

Parking Fascism

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/22/parking-fascism/

I was on my way out of the office when I noticed a bright green sticker on a car in the parking lot.

It looks like someone gets paid to drive around the parking lots at 2AM and keep track of how many days anyone has parked anywhere. I can not say enough good things about that. But I would note that while the car was promised to be towed on Thursday morning, I made my discovery on Friday afternoon.

Didn’t look like an abandoned car, either. A Shiny, pastel blue Volkswagen Beetle . . .

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Photo-a-Day, 中文

Gung Hay Fat Choy

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2011/01/23/gung-hay-fat-choy/

Chalkboard Rabbits

An assortment of rabbits to greet the Lunar New Year

At Books Inc, on Castro St in Mountain View, an assortment of literary rabbits has been beautifully rendered on a blackboard. From left to right I think we’ve got:

  1. Peter Rabbit
  2. The rabbit from “Alice in Wonderland”
  3. Knuffle Bunny (Thanks, Julie!)
  4. Bunnicula!
  5. Marshmallow

The approaching Lunar (Chinese) New Year is the Year of the Rabbit, which is the same as the Lunar New Year in which I was born. The red envelopes are called 红包, (literally “red envelope”) and they are for gifts of money given to kids.

“Gung Hay Fat Choy” I believe is a Cantonese transliteration of 恭喜发财, which in Mandarin is gong1 xi3 fa1 cai1. A further clue is that the Chinese characters on the chalk board are the traditional Chinese characters, used outside of the People’s Republic of China, and more familiar to past generations of Chinese immigrants, often from Southern China.

You can see that the traditional characters (top) look very similar to their simplified counterparts (bottom):

恭喜發財
恭喜发财

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