Even More Like This

AKICODW Bay Area Wedding Venues

2012-05-05T09:06:33Z

1. No "approved vendor lists" for caterers, bakers, DJs, etc 2. No required vendors 2. Provide the tables, chairs, linens, fixtures and staff to set up and tear down 3. Have ASCAP licences in place so all we have to do is power up the speakers, plug them into mixer, and press play on the iPod 4. Do not cost the equivalent of a round trip business class flight to Shanghai 5. Have a license for beer and wine 6. Do not require me to convert to their faith in order to use the venue

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/114629.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

whumpdotcom @ 2012-02-01T00:46:00

2012-02-01T08:59:25Z

You may have heard that the Komen Foundation suspended funding of breast cancer screening for low-income women at Planned Parenthood. It turns out that the Komen Foundation has been suborned by the evangelical scumbags.

Best thing to do now, if you have the means, is to donate or increase your donation to Planned Parenthood (I doubled my monthly donation to Planned Parenthood Mar Monte,) and don't give a dime to Komen.

If you don't have the means to give to Planned Parenthood, ask your friends and family to give if they can.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/108770.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

In Which SUP Is Told To Go Take Branding And Shove It Up Their Ass

2012-01-22T01:35:55Z

Given the forthcoming changes to Live Journal, it is time to end my relationship with LJ and SUP. I will be deleting my account there.

If you are reading this on LJ, my advice is to leave now, and come to Dreamwidth.

Strip-mining the lives of actual people for the sake of branding and marketing is just as toxic, anti-democratic, and evil as the MPAA and RIAA writing laws to keep their rent-seeking business models on life support.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/108530.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Friendship is Yoko Kanno

2011-10-16T20:02:41Z

My Little Bebop: Punching Things is Magic

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/100639.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Morning Reading

2011-10-12T16:08:18Z

Aaron Bady found a transcript of Slavoj Žižek speaking at #ows.

Which reminded me that Žižek gave a talk at RSA which hits on a theme many of you remember about the "master's tools" and the "master's house."

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/100273.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Yes, IE6 needs to die, but too many people need it.

2011-10-08T20:33:19Z

Originally posted at https://plus.google.com/103858073822961240171/posts/NPyZ723rHrK So, I commented at +Doug Crockford's talk this morning at Silicon Valley Code Camp that our enthusiasm for killing IE6 must be tempered. And I'll give you some reasons why. There are whole segments of people who can't just start using Chrome, IE10, Safari, or Firefox. 1. They have a disability and live on a fixed income. Which means they are using a computer in a library or community center who doesn't have the budget or staff to upgrade. Or they are using their own computer and they can't upgrade. 2. They use assistive tech that they can't upgrade. If you are blind, you're using screen reading software which is expensive and may not be forward compatible, and again, if you're on a fixed income, rent and food come before software upgrades. 3. If you're poor, you're using the computer at the library, or you're using a non-smart phone with a very old browser. 4. If you have a cognitive disability, switching browsers can be a big a block to getting work done as changing your operating system, and locking the system preferences to a language and character set you don't read. So, yeah, I want to stop having to support IE6 through IE8, and I'm lucky that I work on enterprise software with service level agreements on what we support so I don't have to sweat IE6. But if you're writing for the general public, then you have to take IE6 into account. IE6 was made for the document centric web. Screen readers were made for the document centric web. Symbian's browser was made for the document centric web. We're making apps, and excluding people. If you want to get rid of IE6, then you have to address the infrastructure: support for people with disabilities, proper funding for libraries and schools so they can keep equipment upgraded, build smartphones that don't cost $200 + a two year contract.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/99728.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Because yhlee said she'd be set for life if someone did this...

2011-10-08T07:55:39Z

I've just put up the first version of the TV Tropes Plot Generator, http://apps.whump.com/plotgenerator/index.html, up as a phone-optimized single page app. (I just moved it, but the old link redirects)

It's not quite there (landscape mode needs more love, and I need to split out the CSS and JavaScript files) but have at it.

I'm grateful to the folks at TV Tropes for putting the content under a Creative Commons license, which enabled me to snag the trope indexes then massage them into arrays of Javascript objects.

To get the lists of tropes, I ran this in the browser console on each of the TV Tropes index pages:

var j = []; 
var data = document.getElementsByClassName('twikilink');
for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
j.push({ href: data[i].href, title: data[i].innerHTML });
}
var js = JSON.stringify(j);
document.write("<p>" + js + "</p>");

for each of the six types of tropes. (see comments for why you shouldn't write that loop that way in production code) That gave me the arrays of objects I could copy to the app.

I guess I could either use Strobe or Phonegap and cross-compile it into a stand-alone app.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/99511.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Moneyball

2011-09-25T05:54:25Z

If you have any interest in baseball, economics, or the business of sports, see this movie.

I think it's the finest movie about the game thus far.

Not to mention that I remember that 2002 season and The Streak.

Also, I think this movie is Brad Pitt and Aaron Sorkin's way of telling the Tea Party Nation that statistical reasoning, and not idiotic faith, matters.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/97940.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

All The President's Vids

2011-09-14T16:23:38Z

I can't stand it, I know you planned it
I'm gonna set it straight, this Watergate
I can't stand rocking when I'm in here
'Cause your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear.

JY CINEMASHUP - All the President's Boys from Jeff Yorkes on Vimeo.

Paluka vs. Beastie Boys, via samhumphries

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/97140.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

And yet the turtle moves…

2011-09-11T00:43:25Z

It really pains me when technologists say things like this:

There are many smart, good people working at Linden Lab and in Second Life. The best thing that could happen is for the company to dissolve and the servers shut down so all the smart people can go someplace else and create something awesome that builds on the ideas of Second Life and brings it up to date. (What would that something be? I don't know. I'm not that smart.)
—Mitch Wagner</p>

It's arrogant, for two reasons:

First, it assumes that the existing communities of Second Life users have no value.

Second, it ignores that technologies evolve gradually, as well as disruptively.

While advertisers and apologists for Facebook and other privacy corroding "social media" tools may think a community of, say, steampunks on Second Life have no value to them because they can not monitor their actions at a level of granularity that would make a Stassi officer jealous, that community has value to its members now.

My iPhone and my neighbor's Android don't obsolete my desktop computer, especially since we can't write for those other platforms on those platforms. (Not to mention that it's easier to manage privacy and defend against invasive technologies on desktop/laptop than mobiles.)

I keep coming back to the privacy stance, and I think that's my strongest objection to Mitch's post. A successor to SL runs the extreme risk of being built from the ground up, on anti-privacy technologies. No doubt that it would be sold as "free, free, free" and safe for those foolish enough to think that wallet names will protect them from being offended, but in doing so, it will drain away everything that makes SL interesting and worthwhile.

However, Second Life is still a going concern. The community develops new ideas and techniques. Linden Lab continues to introduce new tools and technologies to the platform.

Engagement is not the same things as firing birds at pigs while you're on the MUNI bus, but many people desire platforms that require engagement, and we won't find them them in a crappy flash game embedded on a corporate Facebook page.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/96499.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Linkspam Will Preempt the Republican Candidates Debate

2011-09-01T08:06:43Z

Lots of linkspam for you:

Spatial Privacy: Flickr, the photo sharing service, released a new feature for photos uploaded with geolocation data that allows the customer to set access controls based on where the photo was taken. For example, you can restrict photos taken at home and school to a subset of your contacts. The only caveat about this is that you then have to be comfortable about sharing geolocation data with Flickr.

And now some development links:

Wrapping history: HTML5 provides a History API, which allows you to manage the URL through JavaScript. This is useful in single page applications such as the new Twitter website, so you can create bookmarkable URLs. Another use is a page displaying paged results, where the previous and next controls trigger loading another page of results through XMLHTTPRequest. The History API allows you to update /things?page=1 to /things?page=2, without reloading the page! Older browsers have to use the #! trick, where a timer watches the fragment (stuff after '#') portion of the URL, and the application updates the view. Benjamin Lupton's History.js library wraps up cross browser support for history so the techniques are transparent to your app's logic.

Aside: using the History API leads to much less painful coding. For example, I can set the next page control to a link to /things?page=5 instead of wiring up a handler, or setting an observer. Because the application is observing the URL, moving around the app becomes a matter of setting up Rails-like routes, and makes implementing a fall-back system for non-javascript browsers much easier (no JavaScript? The browser loads the correct page!)

Rebooting style: Twitter open sourced their base CSS framework which implements a 940 pixel wide, 16 column grid, along with standard style definitions for alerts, dialogs, buttons, tables and forms. And as a proper framework should, sets the default font to Helvetica.

Rebooting style with mobility If you want to design adaptively, so that you can support mobile and other clients with the same pages that you send to browsers, the Golden Grid System may be worth a look.

Providing acceptable service to IE: Joni Korpi, who designed Golden Grid, recommends dealing with IE8 and less by serving them the mobile-layout..

Now, Louis Lazarus would disagree, and suggests developing in IE first (but using only standards, no-IE only features). However that means developing in Windows, where there are no decent built-in debug/IDE tools such as Firebug or Webkit's inspectors.

My take is that the 'serve IE a mobile view' works for content/editorial oriented sites, but not for app/reporting sites. And lean on the product owner to set a timetable for phasing out IE6-8 support.

Designing for names: From the W3C, a recommendation document on representing personal names.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/95491.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

I got your drabbles right here.

2011-08-28T19:59:44Z

The sirens of the local constabulary grew louder.

Melody pushed past the Doctor, wedging open the door of the TARDIS. She brandished a pistol.

"I have a gun. You have a time machine. Let's kill Godwin*."

*I'd like to remind you all that Godwin is protected by the Shadow Convention, so don't go messing with him.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/95110.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Five Question Shuffle

2011-08-24T06:14:32Z

Via boxofdelights, the five question meme.

If you'd like me to ask you five questions, then say "drop science" in the comments. I'll ask some questions, and then post the answers and propagate the meme in your journal.

Meanwhile, here's boxofdelight's questions:

1. What's your superpower?

Making connections, systems thinking, and being passionate about things I care about.

2. What's your Kryptonite?

Seeing patterns in the data that really aren't there.

3. Tell me about a moment when you were perfectly happy.

Making dinner with cynthia1960 Sunday night.

4. Recommend me some music.

That first one didn't work, silly record labels prohibiting embedding.

Let's try Shearwater instead.

5. Do you ever fake it? Why or why not?

Being guileless, it's hard for me to fake it.

Though being in the company of someone who can bluff is pretty eye opening.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/94782.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Linkspam Was Shocked to Learn there are Drinkable Chardonnays

2011-08-23T05:21:07Z

Natural systems, given time, recover and find new equilibria A northern California town uses a beach beneath a cliff for a rubbish tip until the 1960's. After they cleaned up the big debris, they found that decades of waves and weather had worked all the broken bottles into smooth, rounded glass pebbles.

Status monkeys princess coins the term "WASPonyms" to discuss Google's still broken profile policy.

Reclaiming Blogging Cartoonist and early-ish "Web 2.0" icon Hugh MacLeod gives up twitter and facebook to focus on blogging.

But life's too short to drink Chardonnay I went on a tasting tour of Carmel Valley wineries with coworkers. The big favorite was a 2009 Chenin Blanc from Heller Estate Organic Vineyards.

ETA that's Carmel, not Caramel..., thanks voidampersand

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/94682.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Making a Hash of it

2011-08-20T21:23:07Z

We had some linguiça in the fridge we needed to use (cynthia1960 gets it from the Portuguese market in Fremont, along with sweet bread. Her family's Azorian/Maderian via Maui.)

I had a notion of making hash with it:

Tia Lordes' Hash

Serves 2 - 4.

One (1) 14 oz. package of linguiça (sausage)
Three medium size "ordinary Idaho"/russet potatoes
One white onion
3 tablespoons butter
2 to 4 eggs
1/8 cup water

Gear

Large skillet or saute pan with cover
Two bowls, one large enough to grate potatoes into
Hand grater
Optional: Cheesecloth or clean dishtowel

Split the casings on the linguiça and empty into a large skillet or saute pan over medium heat, allow to cook until well done.

While the linguiça fries, dice the onion, keep to side. Grate the potatoes coarsely.

The potatoes will be soggy. You may, if you want, wrap them in cheesecloth or a dishtowel and wring the excess moisture out of them.

Drain linguiça, reserving a little of the drippings. Return to stove, add butter.

Add potatoes and onions, using a spatula to mix uniformly with linguiça, press down mixure until flat and even.

Raise heat slightly, let hash cook until nearly crip on bottom, checking often with spatula.

When crisp, but not burnt, break up mat and press down again. The technique is similar to stir-fry rice.

Continue until potatoes are nearly cooked all the way through.

Into each quadrant or half of the pan, crack an egg for each person eating.

Use your spatula to expose the center of the skillet, add a small amount of water, turn up heat, cover pan.

Leave covered on heat for 3 minutes.

Remove from heat, leave covered for another minute or two. You're poaching the eggs.

Remove each quarter of the hash, leaving the poached egg on top, an serve with fruit and/or toasted sweet bread.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/94209.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Meanwhile, some folks at the Lab get it.

2011-07-13T07:48:46Z

New-ish Linden Lab CEO Rob Humble on identity:

There have been a series of high-profile people, from the head of Facebook to the Pope, talking about how social media should be about centering the individual – that it is all about your real life and ensuring that you don’t become a fractured person. I respectfully disagree with that.

I think that one of the healthiest things that technology can do is actually help us develop the different dimensions of ourselves that we portray in different situations. For example, the “me” at church is very different from the “me” who plays an online shooter game. The “me” talking to you now is very different from the one who will be at my parent-teacher-association meeting later tonight. We’ve always had that. I actually like the idea of enabling people to say, “In this community, I’m a completely different person, and I can hold views that aren’t going to seep into this other part of my life.” It’s a slightly heretical position, but that’s the one I take.

I'm still proud of the work I did last spring on identity (Display Names) at Linden. It wasn't perfect, but a damned sight better than Facebook, or the confused state of play at G+.

Rob's comments almost make me want to inquire about coming back to the Lab.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/90179.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

More Fun with Financial Markets

2011-07-02T06:53:39Z

Suppose you're an early employee of Facebook. Your options are fully vested, and your waiting for that glorious IPO so you can cash out and be a philanthropist, start your own company, or dive naked in to a swimming pool filled with $100 bills.

It's been several years, you're still waiting, and Sand Hill Road's going to look for some other hot shot.

But wait, you've learned you can sell some or all your vested shares on the secondary market, which is like the stock market, except for the things that make markets work, like transparency and open participation (you have to have at least a million in assets to participate.)

And you have another situation where there's a large amount of money chasing after what is hoped to be a high return, but because of the lack of reporting requirements, the limited size of the market, and all that top talent leaving the company may be another bubble. (via vrika)

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/89370.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

An announcement.

2011-05-28T00:00:52Z

cynthia1960 and I wish to announce our engagement. No date set, but it will be after California's Prop 8 is sent howling, into the void so that our friends can marry as well.

We've commissioned our rings from laurieopal.

In June we finish moving into our new place in Sunnyvale.

This has been a long time coming, and I'm grateful that Cynthia has accepted my proposal.

ETA: see also: Cynthia's announcement.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/87443.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

The Rapture and I

2011-05-20T05:55:12Z

I've realized that over the past few days, that neither the jokes on my twitter feed, or my own attempts at humor were not dispelling an unease that had befallen me. Even my shoulder had seized up, leaving me in wincing pain.

I know, at the level of reason, at the level of understanding of Scripture by reasonable Christians, and as someone who is a strong agnostic, that May 21 is not "judgement day,' but all this talk has pressed some old buttons.

The Rapture really fucked up my childhood.

It was 5th grade, and I was telling a friend how excited I was for the future. We were going to land spacecraft on Mars for the Bicentennial, I was going to study engineering and help build spacecraft, and maybe I'd be walking on Mars someday.

Then my friend said, that it's all for naught, and I shouldn't make plans for the future because The Rapture was imminent and God was going to take up the believers, and leave the sinful to languish in a world ruled by Satan, before the eventual eternal damnation.

I was deflated. God would do that? Just upend the game board before we had a chance to get our act together? Yes, he said, and added I should read The Great Late Planet Earth, which he, his family, and friends took as gospel. There would be no Mars or rocket ships for me. I could either surrender to the world-destroying God or suffer eternal torment.

So, I asked Mom about it. What a mistake. Even though we had stopped going to church on Sunday (a falling out between my Father and the pastor of the Baptist Church in which we were members) a while back, she also believed in pre-millenial dispensationalism. And she said my friend was right, and that while I could make plans for the future, God was going to return any day.

Now, my skepticism was already well-rooted by then. I was reading books on astronomy and other topics that did not square with a 6,000 year-old universe. My father, who still believes in something like a Christian God, said he squared what we knew about the observable universe by not being a biblical literalist.

But to hear your friends all confident in the belief that the world would end soon, it leads to doubt, but not faith. At the time, I think I believed in a god, but he didn't strike me as a pleasant entity.

This was all happening in suburban Dallas in the 1970's. Conservative evangelical Christianity, derailed by the Civil Rights Act, Roe v. Wade, Watergate, and the abandonment of the unpopular occupation of Vietnam, was rebuilding their power and coming back as a politicized force. And as Fred Clark observes in a recent post to Slacktivist, Dallas was the epicenter of whack-a-doodle prophecies during the time. I had the misfortune to be growing up in a region aflame with the promise of the saved watching the torments of the damned.

And being young, I didn't understand the political appeal of end-times prophesies to a population who had just gotten a glimpse of a world where they may not be at the top of the heap. They didn't want to share, they wanted their God to come and blow everything up.

It was only much later that I learned that this worldview was not universal among Christians, certainly not mainstream Catholics, and not even among Protestants.

This morning, I remembered the friend in school, and my disappointment. And why all the talk of Rapture was making me cranky.

Others can reconcile the observable world with their faith, and worship a god that's not a thug. But the Rapture's poisoned the well of faith for me. I can't drink from it.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/86769.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Waitin' on the End of the World

2011-05-18T07:42:48Z

Certain precincts of evangelical Christianity have proclaimed the 21st as Judgement Day. Besides conflicting with Maker Faire, the notion that mere mortals can read God's calendar (well, unless God was using an Android Phone) just begs incredulity (unless you're an agnostic and sneer at the whole spectacle.)

View poll: Imminentize This!

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/85772.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Mother's Day

2011-05-08T19:15:58Z

It's been 13 years since my mother died of complications from metastatic cancer, so the exhortations in my inbox to buy her things are alternatively creepy, amusing, or from an alternate universe where one buys grave goods for dead family members off the internet.

But it is Mothers' Day, and to my friends who are raising kids in that capacity, I recognize you and your work. No amount of brunch, iPads, or flowers can compensate.

ETA: Dear San Jose Sharks, I heard your mothers would be very happy if you eliminated the Red Wings tonight.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/85125.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Three Weeks for Dreamwidth

2011-04-22T06:58:08Z

I'm borrowing elf's idea of soliciting ideas for posts for the fest.

View poll: 3W4DW Posts

If I'm stumped, I'm going to use finch's list of prompts.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/81726.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

This evening's nerdcore rap offering.

2011-04-16T04:24:04Z

Boom.

Boom! And a Bear Comes Out from David Malki ! on Vimeo.

You visit the Machine of Death. You draw "BEAR" as your prediction. How does this affect your life? AND WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN TO YOU??

Free MP3 download at: http://machineofdeath.net/talent-show

Featuring Zachary Sigelko and David Malki !
Lyrics by David Malki !

</site-embed>

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/81231.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Best April Fools Gag

2011-04-01T22:15:29Z

Search Google for 'Helvetica':

Gary Hustwit, director of the Helvetica documentary, tweets:

Helveticafilm.com getting mad traffic via Google's #aprilfools prank. Sergey & Larry, I'll be over to wash your cars on Sunday. — @gary_hustwit

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/79954.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.

Linkspam wants to know about your instant viewing experience

2011-03-31T05:29:23Z

Even if you're borrowing a loaf pan from a neighbor at 9pm: I'll just say here that making banana bread is damned simple if you have the ingredients on-hand. I would cut back on the sugar in the recipe, and add chocolate chips next time.

The Last Princess of Hawai'i: cynthia1960 and I really want to see this film about Victoria Ka'iulani, and the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom. But it's DVD only via Netflix. Damnable studios.

I'm not a fan of golf, but this is awesome: pro-golfer Ryo Ishikawa pledges all his tournament winnings in 2011 to aid the survivors of the March Sendai Earthquake and Tsunami.

When Tcl was the future: Sixteen years ago, Java might not have become the language it is today, but for the help of Kim Polese and James Gosling.

The history of "+1": Google announced the ability for logged-in users to "+1" search results they like, aside from the worries over gaming results, the "+1" phrase comes from open source project management and voting.

This entry was originally posted at http://whump.dreamwidth.org/79672.html, please comment there. You can sign in using via OpenID.