dannyman.toldme.com

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.

GopherCoder Jason Govig

Google announces a phone, my lunch conversation is fucked.

5 Jan

ktgeek Keith T. Garner

My love for Friday is like a truck BEZERKER

8 Jan

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook

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

8 Jan

FartSandwich Fart Sandwich

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

7 Jan

chowbok Kim Scarborough

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

11 Jan

erickolb erickolb

Give as generously as you can to Doctors Without Borders #Haiti #Earthquake Response and help save lives. http://bit.ly/MSFhaiti

13 Jan

BarackObama Barack Obama

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

15 Jan

rands rands

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

15 Jan

TheSouthButt The South Butt

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

20 Jan

FartSandwich Fart Sandwich

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

20 Jan

rkohr RobKohr / Rob Kohr

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

20 Jan

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook

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

25 Jan

neilhimself 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.

25 Jan

chowbok Kim Scarborough

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

26 Jan

FakeAPStylebook 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.

26 Jan

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook

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

27 Jan

chowbok Kim Scarborough

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

27 Jan

recursive Mike Magin

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

31 Jan

February

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

thejointstaff Adm. Mike Mullen

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

2 Feb

FartSandwich Fart Sandwich

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

3 Feb

japolo RJ B.

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

3 Feb

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook

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

4 Feb

modcloth ModCloth

Little kids reenact Jersey Shore. Have you seen this yet? It’s hilarious, even if you don’t watch the show! http://bit.ly/aRSGe6 HR

4 Feb

faithy Faithy

I like deal breakers: “If he can’t figure out the public transportation system, well … I don’t want you dating him.” http://bit.ly/a63MK0

10 Feb

jennybento jenny bento

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

19 Feb

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook

In stories about celebrity infidelity, feign surprise.

19 Feb

okcupid OkCupid

“Americans are more into oral sex later in life, but Iowa City & Birmingham are definitely ahead of the curve.” http://okcupid.com/z/qv4

24 Feb

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.

latone Joe Latone

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

4 Mar

rands rands

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

5 Mar

TheOnion The Onion

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

8 Mar

GuyClark Guy Clark

Amusingly enough, I really hate adverbs.

9 Mar

rands 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.

12 Mar

nathanrabin Nathan Rabin

Holy shit, MY YEAR OF FLOPS has a release date: October 19th! http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Nathan-Rabin/45083314/books

16 Mar

juliekang juliekang

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

21 Mar

RobDenBleyker Rob DenBleyker

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

21 Mar

foranimalsinc For Animals

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

29 Mar

kenyatta kenyatta cheese

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

31 Mar

evan Evan

Accidental retweet.

31 Mar

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.

dmac1 Doug MacMillan

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

7 May

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook

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

11 May

NYTransitMuseum NY Transit Museum

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

12 May

SarrahPalinU5A Sarrah Palin

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

7 May

postsecret PostSecret

“Write drunk; edit sober.” -Hemingway

13 May

OnionJobs Onion Jobs

Hiring a Front End Developer @TheOnion in Chicago. http://onion.com/bYZo6f #jobs #dev

14 May

PATHTweet PATH

Per http://PATHalerts.com Service between HOB & WTC is suspended in both directions, due to police activity. #ServAdv

17 May

PROMO_TWEET Promoted Tweet

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

19 May

sockington Sockamillion

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

19 May

Slate Slate

Daley to reporter “If I put this [gun] up your butt, you’ll find out how effective [Chicago anticrime initiative] is” http://slate.me/a8n46M

21 May

benjyfeen benjyfeen

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

21 May

gucky 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

21 May

kpereira Kevin Pereira

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

23 May

ktgeek Keith T. Garner

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

24 May

92YTribeca 92YTribeca

One of our coworkers got her first French kiss from an actual French man – POINTS FOR AUTHENTICITY! http://ow.ly/1PL8i #firstkiss

26 May

neilhimself Neil Gaiman

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

26 May

TheOnion The Onion

Entire Facebook Staff Laughs As Man Tightens Privacy Settings http://onion.com/bzOA8z

26 May

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.

StephenAtHome Stephen Colbert

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

2 Jun

FartSandwich 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.

3 Jun

ktgeek Keith T. Garner

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

3 Jun

StephenAtHome Stephen Colbert

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

3 Jun

eugeneiiim 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.

5 Jun

FartSandwich Fart Sandwich

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

5 Jun

jennybento jenny bento

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

6 Jun

jennybento jenny bento

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

7 Jun

SarrahPalinU5A Sarrah Palin

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

9 Jun

311NYC New York City 311

Donate Blood. Find out where and when: http://bit.ly/dsnLII

10 Jun

FartSandwich Fart Sandwich

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

10 Jun

BPGlobalPR BP Public Relations

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

12 Jun

jesus Jesus Christ

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

21 May

paulandstorm 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.

21 Jun

Oatmeal Matthew Inman

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

21 Jun

doriantaylor Dorian Taylor

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

21 Jun

StephenAtHome Stephen Colbert

in honor of oil-soaked birds, ‘tweets’ are now ‘gurgles. http://bit.ly/cIhZNf

16 Jun

googlevoice Google Voice

Goodbye invites, hello open sign-ups: http://bit.ly/cicEOH

22 Jun

OldFunnyJoker 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!

23 Jun

StephenAtHome Stephen Colbert

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

23 Jun

megE123 MegE

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

24 Jun

danco Dan Coulter

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

24 Jun

StDogbert Patrick Whang

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

29 Jun

GopherCoder 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.

29 Jun

SarrahPalinU5A Sarrah Palin

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

30 Jun

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.

wigu Jeffrey Rowland

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

2 Jul

FartSandwich 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.

2 Jul

mlevchin Max Levchin

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

7 Jul

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook

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

8 Jul

feistyelle 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. #mehserle

8 Jul

SFBART SFBART

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

8 Jul

doomsey doomsey

hah! “Copying homework is a leading indicator of becoming a business major,” Pritchard says. (http://bit.ly/cQVxXc via slashdot)

9 Jul

DBAHULK Bruce Banner

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

12 Jul

okcupid OkCupid

New blog post! We checked data on 1M users and found lies on sex, height, & pic age. Yes, we know you’re shocked. http://okcupid.com/z/bc83

13 Jul

drewtoothpaste drewtoothpaste

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

20 Jul

dlinder Dan Linder

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

21 Jul

FakeAPStylebook 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.

27 Jul

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.

FartSandwich Fart Sandwich

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

10 Aug

FartSandwich Fart Sandwich

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

11 Aug

TheOnion The Onion

Opinion: If I Hadn’t Found Jesus, I’d Feel Pretty Shitty About My Crimes http://onion.com/buEICG

12 Aug

ju916 ju

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

11 Aug

bramcohen Bram Cohen

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

11 Aug

googlecalendar Google Calendar

To all the south paws out there, happy Left Hander’s Day! http://bit.ly/d2oJzW

13 Aug

TelstarLogistic Todd Lappin

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

13 Aug

anildash Anil Dash

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

13 Aug

erickolb erickolb

Unskippable previews on a retail DVD are still bullshit.

15 Aug

myzt 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

16 Aug

almightygod 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.”

16 Aug

drewtoothpaste 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!”

16 Aug

StephenAtHome Stephen Colbert

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

16 Aug

lukkhacoder lukkhacoder

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

17 Aug

anildash Anil Dash

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

19 Aug

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook

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

19 Aug

anildash Anil Dash

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

19 Aug

ironicsans 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.

19 Aug

SarrahPalinU5A 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!

20 Aug

engadgetmobile Engadget Mobile

Exclusive: T-Mobile G2 in the wild! http://bit.ly/bYhoub

20 Aug

TheOnion The Onion

In Focus: Midwest Peace Talks Shattered By Illinois Toll-Booth Bombing http://onion.com/b2nKzW

20 Aug

jeanteasdale Jean Teasdale

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

20 Aug

drhastings Christopher Hastings

It is important that you see Scott Pilgrim. http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/08/go-and-pay-to-see-scott-pilgrim-right-now.html

24 Aug

TelstarLogistic Todd Lappin

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

25 Aug

ryanpequin 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.

26 Aug

StephenAtHome Stephen Colbert

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

25 Aug

FartSandwich 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.

26 Aug

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook

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

26 Aug

teiwaz Camron Assadi

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

30 Aug

September

SarrahPalinU5A Sarrah Palin

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

1 Sep

TheOnion The Onion

8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live http://onion.com/9ldi1f

2 Sep

racheknits Rachel Weber

What does a vegetarian zombie eat? Graaaaaains!

6 Sep

Phineas Phineas

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

6 Sep

juphoff Jeff Uphoff

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

9 Sep

drewtoothpaste drewtoothpaste

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

11 Sep

RobDenBleyker Rob DenBleyker

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

14 Sep

RBReich Robert Reich

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

14 Sep

mmccue Mike McCue

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

19 Sep

ryanpequin 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?

19 Sep

CobraCommander Cobra Commander

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

23 Sep

TheDollSays 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??’

23 Sep

emaland emaland

I bet Mavis Beacon *hates* the iPad

25 Sep

FartSandwich Fart Sandwich

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

29 Sep

rands rands

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

30 Sep

DavidAndGoliath David McKendrick

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

30 Sep

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.

Oatmeal Matthew Inman

If you do this in an email, I hate you http://bit.ly/d5tWus

4 Oct

PeterGriffinn Peter Griffin

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

6 Oct

erickolb 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.

6 Oct

shitmydadsays 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.”

7 Oct

flyingwithfish 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) #avgeek

8 Oct

kevinmitnick Kevin Mitnick

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

9 Oct

jasonjordan Jason Jordan

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

10 Oct

codinghorror Jeff Atwood

http://stackexchange.com is to forums as Wikipedia is to Britannica.

14 Oct

ktgeek 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.

19 Oct

StephenAtHome 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.

25 Oct

ftrain Paul Ford

Please stop “engaging” with the web.

25 Oct

jasonbrooks 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!

27 Oct

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook

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

27 Oct

FartSandwich 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!”

27 Oct

nedroid 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

29 Oct

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.

dorisnight 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.

2 Nov

TheOnion The Onion

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

2 Nov

Mike_FTW Mike Monteiro

This is EXACTLY why marijuana should be legal. #sfriots #sfscanner

1 Nov

FakeeEtiquette 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.

2 Nov

BrianLynch Brian Lynch

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

2 Nov

svtransitupdts SV Transit Updates

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

3 Nov

StephenAtHome 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!

8 Nov

amyrrich A. Rich

beware of heroes as overloaded single points of failure. create situations where heroes are not necessary. #lisa10

9 Nov

philiph Philip J. Hollenback

My last OSCON & USENIX were 90% mac laptops. #LISA10 looks more like 70% macs. Everyone else better be running linux!

10 Nov

StephenAtHome Stephen Colbert

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

10 Nov

anildash 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!

10 Nov

mkapor Mitch Kapor

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

16 Nov

jorgemancheno Jorge Mancheno

Penn Jillette calls the cops on the TSA. Amazing. http://j.mp/92hRLB

16 Nov

saintaardvark Saint Aardvark

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

17 Nov

photomatt Matt Mullenweg

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

18 Nov

bstiteler 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.

19 Nov

TelstarLogistic Todd Lappin

Hot Wheels: Artist Chris Burden combines Mattel toy cars, Lego, and Lincoln Logs to create world-class kinetic art: http://bit.ly/bZifpR

19 Nov

caseystratton 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!

20 Nov

ptemples Phil Temples

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

21 Nov

paulsmith Paul Smith

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

21 Nov

Halcyon John Halcyon Styn

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

27 Nov

anildash Anil Dash

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

27 Nov

jezhumble jezhumble

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

29 Nov

patsajak Pat Sajak

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

29 Nov

Nonapeptide Wesley Nonapeptide

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

29 Nov

kvbeek 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. #dadt

30 Nov

BarackObama 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.

30 Nov

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 bmoyles

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

1 Dec

ktgeek Keith T. Garner

@dannyman My penis is #TL4T

1 Dec

jamiew Jamie Wilkinson

Awesome URL of the day: http://kitty.cat/

1 Dec

TheOnion The Onion

Julian Assange Fired From IT Job At Pentagon http://onion.com/fPsLqr

2 Dec

NASA_Ames NASA Ames

No more guessing! Astrobiology announcement starts now on NASA TV http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

2 Dec

FakeeEtiquette Fake e-Etiquette

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

2 Dec

jonathancoulton 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!!

2 Dec

dpaola2 Dave Paola

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

2 Dec

magurski Michael Gurski

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

3 Dec

randyduax Randy Duax

Wikileaks has unpublished info on UFOs!

3 Dec

crispycracka 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!

3 Dec

andol Andreas Olsson

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

5 Dec

anotherlandguy Russell Nagle

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

6 Dec

anildash 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.

6 Dec

japolo RJ B.

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

6 Dec

ptorrone phillip torrone

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

7 Dec

FartSandwich 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.

7 Dec

JoeLieberman Joe Lieberman

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

9 Dec

ConanOBrien 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.

15 Dec

alqaeda Al-Qaeda

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

14 Sep

kmcphillips Kevin McPhillips

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

15 Dec

dtwright Dan Wright

KLINGON CHRISTMAS CAROL HAS LOTS OF YELLING #klingonxmas

16 Dec

anildash 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.

16 Dec

StormyPenguin 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

16 Dec

FartSandwich 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.

16 Dec

philiph Philip J. Hollenback

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

17 Dec

anildash Anil Dash

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

18 Dec

walterkirn walter kirn

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

18 Dec

agschick Andrew Schick

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

19 Dec

douglaskarr Douglas Karr

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

20 Dec

Nonapeptide 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

21 Dec

philiph Philip J. Hollenback

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

22 Dec

joeschmitt Joe Schmitt

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

22 Dec

snipeyhead snipe ツ

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

30 Dec

bradfitz Brad Fitzpatrick

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

30 Dec

feistyelle Feisty Elle

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

30 Dec

chemical_smile Verified ✔ Brian

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

29 Dec

SteveMartinToGo Steve Martin

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

31 Dec

rstevens rstevens

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

31 Dec

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

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

1 Comment

When Supernodes Go Bust . . .

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/12/30/skype-failure-as-economic-parable/

Several leading institutions fail, leading consumers to a rush on the remaining institutions, causing them to fail. A cascade of failures brings the whole system crashing down until the central authority undertakes a massive, unprecedented intervention to bring the system back to normal. At first, the degree of central intervention required is underestimated, but in time sufficient resources are brought to bear and the complex system recovers.

In the space of twenty-four hours.

Interestingly, Skype’s network is actually a peer-to-peer network. It is a complex system which normally proves highly resilient, with in-built safety mechanisms to contain failure and ensure reliability. But under the right circumstances, failure can cascade. I couldn’t help but read that as a metaphor for free-market economics, which can usually take care of itself, but will enter a fugue state often enough to require a strong authority to intervene and put it right.

As a SysAdmin, the Skype network sounds like a very interesting beast. I figure that an action item against a future failure might be to provide a “central reserve bank” that monitors the health of so-called supernodes and automatically fires up large numbers of the dedicated mega-supernodes in the event of a widespread failure. (And such a strategy could well exacerbate some other unanticipated failure mode.)

1 Comment

Southwest WiFi and Net Neutrality

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/12/23/swa-yahoo-being-evil/

Good news! Southwest Airlines offers wifi on my flight! Only $5 introductory price! I have to try this out!

The service is “designed by Yahoo!”

It is kind of really really slow to make connections.

Wait . . . WTF is this?!!

Yup. Southwest Airlines wifi does HTTP session hijacking to inject content in to your web pages.

This is a perfect illustration of the need for net neutrality: your Internet Service Provider should not interfere with your ability to surf web pages. This would be comparable to your phone company interrupting your telephone calls with commercials. Outrageous! Wrong! Bad!!

(On Mei’s computer there are actual ads in the blue bar on top, but my AdBlock plugin filters those.)

It gets worse from there. On the “designed by Yahoo!” experience you can surf on over to Yahoo! just fine. But I’m a Google man. Here’s what Google looks like:

Work-around #1: On sites that support them, use HTTPS URLs. Those are encrypted, so they can’t be hijacked. So, where http://www.google.com/ fails, https://www.google.com/ gets through!

But my little WordPress blog lacks fancy-pants HTTPS. And the session hijacking breaks my ability to post.

Work-around #2: If you have a remote shell account, a simple ssh -D 8080 will set up a SOCKS proxy, and you can tell your web browser to use SOCKS proxy localhost:8080 . . . now you are routing through an encrypted connection: no hijacking!

Update: they charge is $5/segment, so $10 if your plane stops in Las Vegas, and you get to type your credit card number a second time. Though, on the second segment, Google loads okay, but I still had to route through the proxy because the magic header was blocking WordPress’ media interface.

Update: holy packet loss, Batman!

0-20:20 dannhowa@dannhowa-w510 ~$ ping -qc 10 www.yahoo.com
PING any-fp.wa1.b.yahoo.com (72.30.2.43) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- any-fp.wa1.b.yahoo.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 8 received, 20% packet loss, time 10011ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 805.813/1669.936/3452.445/936.527 ms, pipe 4
0-20:21 dannhowa@dannhowa-w510 ~$ ping -qc 10 www.google.com
PING www.l.google.com (74.125.19.99) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- www.l.google.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 6 received, 40% packet loss, time 11460ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 661.391/2203.774/4022.638/1383.736 ms, pipe 5

At least they aren’t discriminating at the packet level.

Update: it sucked less later on, but still incredible latency:

0-21:07 dannhowa@dannhowa-w510 ~$ ping -qc 10 www.yahoo.com && ping -qc 10 www.google.com
PING any-fp.wa1.b.yahoo.com (98.137.149.56) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- any-fp.wa1.b.yahoo.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 8 received, 20% packet loss, time 8998ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 699.470/1023.412/2003.447/481.359 ms, pipe 3
PING www.l.google.com (74.125.19.147) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- www.l.google.com ping statistics ---
10 packets transmitted, 8 received, 20% packet loss, time 9003ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 690.500/1201.541/2052.341/483.891 ms, pipe 3

The Gogo Wireless on Virgin America always worked way better than this, and Google covers the cost over the holidays. And as far as I know: no session hijacking!

5 Comments

Virtualization: Blessing or Curse?

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/12/02/virtualization-blessing-or-curse/

I saw this float across my Google Reader yesterday, thanks to Tom Limoncelli. If you are a sysadmin in an environment fixing to do more virtualization, it is well worth a skim:

Virtualization: Blessing or Curse?

NOTE: this isn’t an anti-virtualization rant, more of a “things to watch out for” briefing.

Some of my take-aways:

• Sure we’ll have fewer physical servers, but the number of deployed systems will grow more quickly. As that grows so too will our systems management burden.
• As the system count grows faster, we may hit capacity chokepoints on internal infrastructure like monitoring, trending, log analysis, DHCP or DNS faster than previously assumed.
• Troubleshooting becomes more complex: is your slow disk access an application, OS, or hardware issue becomes also a potential host OS, networking/SAN or filer issue as well.
• Regarding troubleshooting: we may add another team to the mix (to manage virtualization) while trouble-shooting has an increased probability of requiring cooperation across multiple teams to pin down. Increased importance on our ability to cooperate across teams.
• Change management impacts: small changes against a larger number of systems sharing architecture snowball even more. One can add something to the base image that increases disk use by 1% for any one system, but multiply that across all your systems and you have a big new load on your filer. (1,000 butterflies flapping their wings.)
• Reduced fault isolation: as we have greater ability to inadvertently magnify increased load and swamp network and storage infrastructure, we have a greater ability to impact the performance of unrelated systems which share that infrastructure.
• The article also cautions against relying on vendor-provided GUIs because they don’t scale as well as a good management and automation framework.

Ah, the other thing noteworthy there is the ACM Queue magazine is now including articles on systems administration. (I subscribed to the system administration feed.)

Feedback Welcome

A wiki feature I would like to see . . .

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/12/01/wiki-feature-node-audit/

A wiki feature I would like to see: when a node has not been edited for a certain period of time, it sends a message to the author and contributors, to review the node for relevance, and update or delete the node, if appropriate. The period of time should be configurable, and the feature should be able to CC the message in to the local request management system.

The check should be repeated on multiples of the period of time. For example, if you want to review your nodes once per year, the first year comes, the author reviews the node, sees no need to make any changes, then another year passes, you get a reminder to take another looksee . . .

This would be useful especially for an operations environment, to ensure that the shared knowledge hasn’t gone too stale, keeping the wiki resource relevant. I sincerely hope this feature already exists in a few systems!

1 Comment

November, 2010

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/12/01/november-2010/

Monday, November 1

Potentially nifty: a text-to-speech utility that writes its output to an audio device, which you could set as your system’s sound input. This way you could have “conversations” in your headphones via VoIP or Skype without having to make disruptive noises or emitting sensitive information in a shared environment like an open office or a library.

Hrmmm.

sudo apt-get install epos
sudo /etc/init.d/epos start
say "this does not work"
sudo apt-get remove epos

sudo apt-get install espeak
espeak "hello there"

But it appears there is no good way on Linux, anyway, to tell a command to dump its audio output to the microphone. Bah.

Wednesday, November 3

I got my sutures out the other day. I’ve still got the band-aid on my chin, cleaning and re-dressing twice a day, until the skin is no longer broken. Doc said I’d be shaving regular next week.

Thursday, November 4

Nice: I got the WordPress for Android App working thanks to Dan at Automattic pointing out I had an SVN-corrupted xmlrpc.php file.

Annoying: No idea how I can possibly type < or > with this nice-but-crippled G2 keyboard.

I made it up to San Bruno today, aboard Caltrain. Today is the first time I took my bike on Caltrain and it really wasn’t as bad as a colleague made it sound. The yellow tags are impossible to find though, so I made a couple labels to stick on my bike indicating what stations I ride between. In San Bruno, I stopped at the curb where I face-planted last week. Nothing special about it. I got to the office way faster than I have by walking. Probably 20 minutes compressed to 5 or not more than 10. The only unpleasant part is crossing El Camino. The crossing I chose had a crosswalk on only one side, so I had to cross against traffic to get rolling across the street.

Friday, November 5

Well, I finally have a new watch band . . . my old one broke such that it would no longer attach to my wrist, but I could dangle it off my belt. Now I have to get used to looking at my wrist again.

Monday, November 8

Some days I just feel blue. Like a dark cloud is over my heart. Not unlike overcast weather. Fortunately I often have the self-awareness to understand that, whether or not I know its origin, this is likely just a passing cloud, and the best way to weather it is to just take life on as a normal day, perhaps with an added dash of industriousness to stave off the natural slothitude that a funk brings on.

Just bought an mp3 on Amazon.com. Thanks, Bruce, for the pick-me-up.

I was just reading in The New Yorker about different ways that salaries are determined. I identified with having accepted the “authority ranking” or feudal model earlier in my career, when what I valued most was the opportunity to work, to serve and build and learn. Back when I still kind of hoped that wages were fair, that bosses valued the contribution of their employees. Back in 1999 this even seemed true: the startup I was working for noticed that I was kicking butt, and ramped my salary up by 20% after my first six months on the job, and again after a year . . . everything was noble and virtuous.

But nobility and virtue don’t often last. Recessions hit, money dries up, eager young employees burn themselves out and haven’t a clue what to do about it. Layoffs come . . . a decade later I have left for greener pastures as many times as I have been layed off. Welcome to the “market pricing” model of economic interaction.

I find some difficulty feeling passionate about being a market priced, employment-at-will agent. Just as sex feels better with someone you love than when you’re getting paid for it, so too does work. Fortunately, the current gig offers competetive compensation, likely stability, and the chance to relate to coworkers over several years. I guess that is as close to “married” one can get in our industry . . . and yet of course I keep my eye out for new opportunities.

And I frequently worry about getting too comfortable, getting a little flabby in the skill set because there is plenty of work I would have to do at a startup that is off-my-plate at a large company. Better attain depth where I needn’t worry over breadth, eh?

Thursday, November 11

I had a meeting today that I haven’t been looking forward to. Basically, I have spent most of my career at smaller companies, where I tend to have a lot more say over how we do things, and where the simple, obvious, light-weight solution will tend to carry the day. But at a large company, there are enough competing interests that the way we do things is often not up to me, and is far more complex and open to error (in my view) than how I would go about doing it.

Note an editorial bias, right? Of course I have a high opinion of my own way of solving a problem. Doesn’t mean my approach is the right one . . .

So, at the end of this meeting, I got McCoy in my head. “I’m just a simple country Doctor.” Well, I’m just a small-shop sysadmin, serving on a corporate flagship. I don’t really understand or approve of everything that is going on, but that isn’t my problem. I focus on getting my own job done and I am happy to give Captain Kirk a piece of my mind, but at the end of the day the Captain gets what the Captain asked for.

Wednesday, November 17

From today’s work log:

Scout around a bit as to the advantages of managing system configuration
files in git. Git’s strength appears to be strong branch and merge
capabilities, working offline from the central repository, and the
capacity for fine-grained commits. Disadvantage is a steeper learning
curve. Anyway, we could potentially allow staff to grab a local branch
make several changes, review changes and reject those that proved
infeasible, then submit changes back to the central repository. Later,
a change management team could review differences between the central
repository and the stage / production repositories, then selectively
merge changes to the more stable environments in an appropriate manner.

I had lunch with Mei today at a Chinese place on Castro St in Mountain View. At the next table I overheard some guys talking about the size of the Oort Cloud if Earth were the size of a grain of sand . . . hard-core nerdy lunch conversation. I recounted that when I got off the light rail the other day I heard one guy explaining to another guy the theory behind anti-matter reactions that power the warp propulsion system in Star Trek. When you live here you live in the pulsing underbelly heart of nerd-dom. I kind of like it.

Thursday, November 18

My bicycle lights came in from Amazon.com and I tried them out yesterday on the ride to the light rail. (Between the weather and a recent injury I’m usually reluctant to ride all the way to work.) The front light was somewhat occluded by the basket so last night I moved it to a helmet mount, which required some careful trimming of a cross-member atop the helmet so the thing would fit, but nothing likely to compromise structural integrity.

Yesterday I also received my replacement G2. I got it up and running and it went and updated itself. It made a big todo about “wifi calling” which . . . uses minutes? Really? REALLY?! So, I’ll provide the bandwidth and you’ll charge me . . . but it also quietly enabled Tethering, via USB and WiFi. I’m using it now. I heard a rumor that T-Mobile was fixing to charge an extra fee for tethering. Hopefully though at the moment they’re content to charge customers to make telephone calls via their home wifi networks.

(Oh yeah, and I’m on the light rail at the moment, though updating a blog is hardly much of a test of tethering.)

I wish I wish that carriers would simply figure out a monetary equivalence between bandwidth and minutes, then just let me pay a transparent rate for what I use. Eventually I guess someone will drop the shenanigans and attract customers like me. As it is I’m miffed that I pay more per month for a calling plan I rarely use than I do for the data surcharge, which as far as I am concerned is the primary point of carrying around a location-aware pocket computer.

Telephone calls? Not my thing.

Later, I was looking at Google’s announcement regarding improved navigation UI. The improved transit overview is nice, but then I happened to request the bike route between work and home, and now that Google has caught on that the Bay Trail North of Moffett is open, it suggests that at the first choice, despite it taking ten minutes longer than more direct options. Anyway, it is nice to know now that my bicycle commute is 11.6 miles in 56 minutes. (I think it takes me a bit longer as I usually take a little break along the way.)

Saturday, November 20

Learned some basic git, and used it for updating the web site.

Installation to more-current-version of git:

sudo yum install gettext-devel expat-devel curl-devel zlib-devel openssl-devel
git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git
cd git
make
make install

(Update path to include $HOME/bin . . .)

Using git:

git init
git add .
git config user.email dannyman@toldme.com
git config user.name "Danny Howard"
git branch somefeature
git checkout somefeature

(Edit files . . . test . . .)

git diff
git add changed files
git commit
git checkout master
git merge somefeature
git branch -d somefeature
git log

The big thing being it is trivial to create branches and switch among them in your working directory. So, you can start working on some feature, put it on the shelf, work on a different feature, and basically submit only the changes you feel are baked back to the main line.

Feedback Welcome

Google Chrome: Not Being Evil

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/11/11/google-chrome-not-being-evil/

I honestly believe that Google really does intend to not-be-evil. And though I know they screw up and have to deal with some grey areas, I put a lot of trust in Google with my personal data. Trust I wouldn’t put in Microsoft or Facebook.

Anyway, my faith in Google was recently re-affirmed when I fired up Google Chrome on a new box and was presented with this dialog:

If you’re not being evil, you make it trivial for users to switch to a different search engine. If you’re making an effort to really do right by the user, you ask them which search engine they prefer, rather than just defaulting them to your own.

This is classy.

3 Comments

Blogger: The Internet’s Tacky Trailer Park

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/08/31/blogger-the-internets-tacky-trailer-park/

In case you have ever wondered what I think of Google’s Blogger:

Seriously, Blogger has all the glitz and glamor of Geocities: it is the Internet’s tacky trailer park where people end up because they figure Google (or, in the old days, Yahoo!) must know something about managing blogs, but in reality it is just a neglected, wayward, red-headed stepchild from a former acquisition that one night that Larry Page got drunk after the company ski trip and woke up in Reno . . .

This from the “Blogger” forum after I had an issue posting a comment on one of their blogs.

I like to think they have gotten better over the years, but right now it looks like the way they handle errors is that they have replaced a vague, general error message with a series of codes, and if you feel really enterprising you may eventually learn that there’s a form somewhere where you can paste in details regarding the error code you encountered in to a Google spreadsheet. But no, linking the error display to the part where you describe how you provoked the error . . . that would be too obvious . . .

Yeah, anyway.

Feedback Welcome

If Facebook Cloned Gmail . . .

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/08/19/if-facebook-cloned-gmail/

Inspired by Anil Dash:

If Facebook built Gmail, only you could see your Inbox.
Six months later, your friends could see your Inbox.
Six months later, friends of your friends could read your Inbox.
Six months later, the Internet could read your Inbox.

Because, although you don’t know it, you really want to share yourself with the world.

Of course, each time the defaults change, you would be able to reconfigure the defaults, but you would have to find the new and improved settings pages and learn how they work.

Feedback Welcome

T-Mobile myTouch Slide 3G: How’s the Keyboard?

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/07/13/i-like-to-type-on-my-smartphone/

I still fondly recall the nice rubber keyboard of my Sidekick 2. So nice, I was reluctant to “upgrade” to a G1, which has a nice enough keyboard. A few months back I got to spend some time with a Nexus One, which was really nice . . . but I just could not adjust to the on-screen keyboard. The on-screen keyboard has gotten very good for inputting addresses and short messages, but if you’re a compulsive typer like me you need an excellent physical keyboard.

So, I keep my eye out for an Android device with an excellent physical keyboard, and naturally I do a little research on this HTC “T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide” . . . the name is truly awful, but it sounds like the keyboard shows promise. (It sounds like the physically-similar HTC “Touch Pro2” has an excellent keyboard, but I don’t want to run Windows on a mobile phone.)

So, in case, like me, you have wondered if the keyboard is any good, here is what various online reviews have had to say:

From http://www.intomobile.com/2010/06/14/review-t-mobile-mytouch-3g-slide-is-this-this-the-android-youre-looking-for/:

Of course, the main reason to get the myTouch Slide is for the full QWERTY keyboard. There are a few negatives but, overall, it’s an excellent way to bang out messages on the go. The shape of the keys are just right and the feedback and “clickability” make it easy to write long e-mails wherever you are. Hitting the secondary function or Caps lock key will bring up a handy light above the keyboard and I always appreciate dedicated comma and period buttons. There’s also pretty good auto-correction software with the keyboard so you don’t have to worry about throwing in apostrophes. The sliding mechanism produces a satisfying sound and it feels like it will hold up over time.

On the downside, I found the Tab button and A a little too close together and this led to multiple frustrating typos. What’s even worse is that the top row doubles as the number keys. This happens on many keyboards but usually you’ll have the letters and numbers a different color or font size to help you quickly find what you’re looking for. The myTouch Slide has “T5” “Y6” “I8” and others the exact same color and size, which can take some time to get used to. None of these quibbles are deal breakers though, as I was quickly able to get up to speed with my typing.

(The keyboard has four rows instead of five, and the top row reads “Q1 W2 E3 R4 T5 Y6 U7 I8 O9 P0” which looks dumb and would take some getting used to. Alas, the Touch Pro2 has five rows, like all the keyboards I am used to.)

From http://mobile.engadget.com/2010/06/01/t-mobile-mytouch-3g-slide-review/:

The keyboard is one of the best four-row designs we’ve used in recent memory (LG, seriously, take some pointers from this before you go releasing an Ally 2) with great feel, spacing, and clickiness — it’s readily apparent that HTC’s deep experience in making these kinds of keyboards is paying dividends. They’ve made room for all of the most important keys that you should be able to access without pressing Shift or Alt, notably the comma, period, and “@” symbol, plus you’ve got Home and Search keys and duplicated modifiers on the left and right sides. HTC aficionados will also be pleased to see that they’ve carried over the lit Shift and Alt symbols above the numeric row, which makes it super easy to see what character you’re about to press. It’s a nice touch.

From http://www.phonedog.com/2010/06/03/noah-s-mytouch-3g-slide-review/:

Keyboards are a very personal thing, and personally I love Slide’s QWERTY. While not quite as luscious as the Touch Pro2 on which it’s based, mT3G Slide’s thumbboard has been a joy to use save for some minor issues I have with the labels on the keys. Buttons on the keyboard are offset and isolated and have decent travel and solid tactile feel – in other words, its the exact opposite of the Moto Droid‘s flat grid of near motionless buttons, which I can’t stand. If you just read that sentence and wrote off the rest of my review because you love, love, love Droid’s QWERTY, then you may well hate Slide’s keyboard. Like I said, QWERTYs are a highly personal matter.

From http://www.mobileburn.com/review.jsp?Id=9572: “the keyboard has great feel, but is visually flawed.”

From http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/06/10/review-t-mobile-mytouch-3g-slide/: “who is this for? It’s for folks who miss their Sidekick and want a keyboard for messaging. The MyTouch 3G Slide’s processor won’t win the blue ribbon at the County Fair, but it is an impressive bit of cellphone.”

My verdict? I would want to try it out in the store, but it sounds like the keyboard would probably be “good enough” for me. That said, I think I will continue to hold out on upgrading for the following reasons:

• My current service plan is $55/mo+tax, but these days it seems extremely difficult to get “smart phone” service for under $70/mo.
• The Slide’s display could be better, its processor could be faster.
• I want that 5-row keyboard, or at least one less stupidly designed.

Given that it may be either a hassle or an impossibility to upgrade my phone without paying more money each month, an expensive “upgrade” had better be worth it. The Slide sounds like it would be good enough as a new phone–a better alternative to the G1–but it has a few too many compromises to justify the cost of upgrade.

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Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/06/28/charles-babbages-difference-engine/

On our trip to London I spent some time browsing the Science Museum, which holds many wonders. When I got upstairs I tingled inside at the sight of this beauty. Charles Babbage was a genius who designed a mechanical, base-10 computing device way before the modern computer era. His vision was never built: it was just too hard and expensive and plain old ahead of its time. Finally, in the 1980s, this computer was built based on Babbage’s old designs. A beautiful brass hand-cranked calculating machine! For a modern computer geek this is not unlike seeing a dinosaur brought to life.

UPDATE: O’Reilley’s blog has a great explanation of the difference engine, and links to Plan 28, to reconstruct the original analytical engine! HELL YES!!

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RANT: Obamas Internet “Kill Switch”

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/06/25/quick-turn-it-off-and-hide/

“Hackers, you say? Oh no we can’t!!”
CC: Obama image derived from Steve Jurvetson’s photograph

Obama internet ‘kill switch’ bill approved

Really?

REALLY!?

Our current national information security policy basically amounts to every company hires their own militia to provide collective security against attacks, large and small. The major ISPs will cooperate with each other to filter out attacks when they can, but . . . it is basically “every man for himself”

And our own critical infrastructure, like the power grid and the military, is constantly being hacked by the Chinese, who have a standing Army of highly competitive, over-caffeinated nerds and a shortage of women. Guys who can’t get laid acquire a lot of energy that needs to be directed somewhere.

So, this new initiative, to use a military analogy, amounts to giving the President an especially large white flag which can be deployed at a moment’s notice. “The Internet is under attack!? Quick, turn everything off and hide!!”

I mean, I thought I was all for Socialism and all, but this rapid surrender option isn’t the part of French national policy that I was hoping we would emulate . . .

How about instead of a “kill switch” we invested some time and energy and patriotism in to building a common defense strategy that analysed threats in real time and coordinated with the parties who manage our national networking infrastructure to deploy a rapid response to threats? Too obvious? Maybe oh maybe that is what they’re trying to do, but they have this “kill switch provision” in there that is making the whole effort look more retarded than it is.

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Growing Up and Counting the Cost

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/06/06/growing-up-and-counting-the-cost/

I used to believe . . . that growing and growing up are analogous, that both are inevitable and uncontrollable processes. Now it seems to me that growing up is governed by the will, that one can choose to become an adult, but only at given moments. These moments come along fairly infrequently — during crises in relationships, for example, or when one has been given the chance to start afresh somewhere — and one can ignore or seize them.

Nick Hornby

I think that is a fair description. I think that for a long time I chose to be swept along with the current, without taking much responsibility for my destination. In the past few years I have gained a better understanding that the crises are “growing up” opportunities, and that I have successfully “grown up” from some of these experiences. Still, it is easy enough to be swept along and fail to learn lessons, and I have surely missed the opportunity to grow as much as I could have from some of these crises.

I also remember John Chambers, Cisco’s CEO, recounting advice he had received during the dot-com boom, that you really only have a great company after you have survived an existential threat. After you have had to “grow up” and see what hard decisions you make when it comes time to make those hard decisions. John recounted with a grim face the large number of layoffs that Cisco chose to make in order to survive the dot-com crash. Today, Cisco pays well, and hands out bonuses, but although it has billions in the bank, it is also religious about managing expenses, which can be frustrating at times. All the same, I prefer to work for a company that can sometimes feel frustratingly stingy, if it means my job is less likely to be axed in the next recession. I like to think that this “stinginess” is the mark of a “grown up” company which is keen to reduce the risk of future crisis.

There is a well-worn adage that those who set out upon a great enterprise would do well to count the cost. I am not sure that this is always true. I think that some of the very greatest enterprises in the world have been carried out successfully simply because the people who undertook them did not count the cost; I am much of the opinion that . . . the most instructive consideration for us is the cost of doing nothing.

Thomas Henry Huxley

The cost of doing nothing? Global Warming springs to mind. I have talked myself down from a lot of ideas because, for example, I have a better and better understanding of the costs of building a service on robust and scalable architecture. For the most part that is a good thing: great ideas should be able to wrestle down their opponents. But sometimes you just have to charge forward, and in the words of Buckminster Fuller, “dare to be naive.”

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Google: Privacy Done Right

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/05/24/google-privacy-done-right/

Logging in to Google Reader, I find that they have made an enhancement, with privacy implications:

Of course, I think my shared items have always been public, but it is nice that they’re trying to do the right thing.

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Post-Facebook Diaspora?

Link: https://dannyman.toldme.com/2010/05/20/post-facebook-diaspora/

So, occasionally someone asks “well, what will we replace Facebook with?” We don’t really need to replace it right away, but there are some NYU kids who figure it would be a fun project to build a distributed social network where you get your own little “seed” site on a server somewhere, and you can connect with your friends, determining what you intend to share with whom. It sounds totally doable, though who knows if they’ll actually manage to execute and gain traction.

They asked the Internet for $10,000 via KickStarter. So far they have been pledged $174,915. $25 of that is mine. I guess they won’t fail for lack of interest or money. Go go underdogs! :)

Oh, and if you’ve been tempted to ditch Facebook, but didn’t want to be the only crazy dweeb out there, you can join just over 6,000 other folks planning to quit on May 31: http://www.quitfacebookday.com/

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