Overloading the Machine

Surprised

Mon, 28 May 2012 00:59:36 GMT

I think Vedge in Philadelphia might be my favorite vegan restaurant in the world.

And Philadelphia might have my vote for best US city for vegans.

More to come once I've slept off the overnight Amtrak funk.

Express indeed

Mon, 14 May 2012 00:24:32 GMT

Date: Sun, 13 May 2012 20:59:38 -0000
From: "American Express"
To: john@wjsullivan.net
Subject: Order No Purchase Fee Gift Cards for Fathers Day

(emphasis added, apostrophe not)

Cambridge and Zipcar

Mon, 07 May 2012 07:15:40 GMT

I'm a few years late to this debate, but back in 2009, Cambridge discussed whether people should be allowed to rent their driveway parking spots to Zipcar.

Apparently the concerns are a combination between:

People with cars might rent out their driveway spot and park on the street, therefore decreasing available street parking for other residents, and
the camel's nose under the tent effect of allowing any commercial use of residential zoned property.

At least, that's what I gleaned from this committee report. I was thinking about this issue because I may be moving soon, maybe to a place that has a parking spot, which I don't intend to use, because I have no car.

I'm not sure how much money Zipcar actually pays for parking spots. According to this page on their site, they prefer to pay nothing. I guess that's not a surprise. I would consider renting them the space for a very low cost, because I would get the benefit of a Zipcar that would often be available for me to use. I imagine a lot of Cambridge residents (of which I am not one) would feel the same way. Between that and the fact that the scenario of a person with a rare driveway spot and a car actually choosing to give up the spot and fight for street parking is laughably unlikely, I don't think this is much of a concern (and if it did happen, it would be somewhat self-regulating, since people would not want to do it if they could not find street parking).

The bigger concern is probably landlords renting the spots to Zipcar instead of giving them to their tenants. A lot of lease agreements might very well prohibit tenants renting out the parking anyway. It seems like they would, since they prohibit other sorts of subleasing without permission.

But something about this concern feels backward to me. Street parking spots are public space, regulated by the city supposedly for public interest. Some number of individual car owners might suffer even more inconvenience than they already do because there is less street parking available, but this cost would come at the benefit of getting many more people access to shared transportation, and might even convince some people to give up their cars entirely.

As far as the commercial use of residential areas goes, that argument reminds me of when I got a ticket in Somerville for having a U-Haul van (not a truck, and also with noncommercial plates) parked in front of my own house with my assigned visitor parking permit in the window. It turns out that the visitor parking permit does not work for "commercial" vehicles, which apparently includes normal-sized vans with noncommercial plates used by noncommercial people to move into their noncommercial residence. In other words, I don't care for the argument.This is not the sort of commercial use we need to worry about -- Zipcar is commercial, but the parking-spot aspect of the service has very little to do with the kinds of commerce that are the concern of zoning laws.

In 2009, 200 Cambridge-based vehicles were used by 10,000 people. That's pretty cool, and probably something the city should embrace. Maybe they have! I need to keep looking for more recent news.

Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman at Berklee, April 28th

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 04:06:28 GMT

Set list

I'm sure about the first five, because they named them, and I'm sure about the last two because I am. I thought I was sure about #7 until a friend at the show with a better ear was skeptical. I still might be right.

1. The Falcon Will Fly Again (Mehldau) from Highway Rider
2. Note To Self (Redman) -- unreleased?
3. Cheryl (Charlie Parker)
4. To Hold On Or Let Go (Mehldau) -- unreleased
5. Dream Brother (Jeff Buckley)
6. ?
7. A Night Away (Metheny/Mehldau) from Metheny Mehldau: Quartet

Encores:

1. The Oneness of Two (In Three) (Redman) from MoodSwing
2. Lithium (Nirvana)

It was an amazing show, even when seen/heard from Row Z.

Magic Legwand makes pucks disappear

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 01:55:04 GMT

The other night in a playoff game against Detroit, Nashville's David Legwand illegally covered the puck with his hand while it was in the goal crease. Normally this would have given the Red Wings a penalty shot, but he managed to escape notice by picking up the puck, carrying it off the ice, and giving it to a trainer.

Here's the video evidence:

If that clip doesn't work, try this one:

This made me remember another time when the puck disappeared, in the playoffs two years ago. I went back to find the video, and guess who is standing next to the goaltender when the puck is nowhere to be found?

I'm confused as to how in the recent case, the game was able to resume without the officials ever locating the puck. As the commentators in the 2010 clip point out, if they just start playing with a new puck, and then the original puck drops out of someone's jersey, suddenly there are two pucks on the ice -- chaos.

I guess sometimes in hockey it's not just the TV spectators who can't find the puck.

Google BBS

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 06:30:54 GMT

This brings back a lot of memories.

Photos from Belgium

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 07:24:15 GMT

I put up (with almost no filtration) the photos I took while visiting Brussels for FOSDEM in February. Most are from the Atomium.

What's the deal with East Boston taxi tolls

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 07:49:51 GMT

At some point, I would like to write in detail about the absurd situations which arise whenever one tries to take a cab into East Boston. But for now, a quick introduction.

The basic situation is this: When taking a Boston cab from Boston into East Boston, the cab driver is not allowed to charge the passenger for the Sumner Tunnel toll. This means that the driver can end up on the hook for $5.25 coming empty back into Boston. Given that most fares from Boston to places like Maverick Square are only $12-$20, that's a substantial loss for drivers. But of course, paying the toll is also a substantial loss for passengers. So, East Boston residents are in a sort of constant low-level war with cab drivers, wherein drivers attempt to cajole and/or guilt passengers into paying the toll voluntarily -- or just outright refuse fares to Eastie. Residents react to this situation in a variety of ways, either:

belligerently asserting their rights,
voluntarily paying the toll to show their solidarity with the common cab driver or in the vague hopes that positive karma from this will help get them a cab next time, or
refusing to pay the toll but tipping generously -- so as to end up basically paying the toll.

This is all complicated by the fact that some drivers just don't know the rules. Like this guy, who refused to let the non-toll-paying passenger out of his cab and instead drove to the police station in an attempt to collect the toll.

But the usual result is that at high-demand times, we have to try several times before we can successfully get a cab, and often that only works by offering to pay the toll. Given that it is not possible to walk or bike into East Boston from Boston, this can feel like pretty serious disenfranchisement. But we can't really blame the drivers either. The rules need to be fixed.

What's the deal with airplane food

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 06:07:05 GMT

I have no idea why they put the above tray table in front of me. While I'm on the topic, I learned some interesting things about airplane food from The New York Times recently:

Customers drink as much tomato juice as beer on planes -- 423,000 gallons of each. This is way more tomato juice than people usually drink on the ground. Supposedly it's because tomato juice has a different taste in different atmospheric conditions. It tastes less acidic on a plane. I have definitely wondered before about this, noticing how the only time I ever see people drink tomato juice (not in a Bloody Mary) is on planes -- well, except for one coworker who keeps it in the fridge at work.
A few years ago, Delta saved $250,000 per year by shaving one ounce from its steaks.
They also saved $210,000 per year by removing one strawberry from salads served in first class on domestic routes.
A one-cent increase in peanut prices increased Delta's costs by $610,000 per year. (A recent flight I was on announced that no peanuts would be served because one of the passengers had a nut allergy.)

Plus One

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 03:23:12 GMT

In mailing list discussions, I've noticed that the practice of replying "+1" to messages with which one agrees has become very widespread.

I think this is interesting for a lot of reasons, such as what it shows about habits picked up in communicating via social network sites that grew out of e-mail percolating back to e-mail. We seem to have really grown to like this idea of "voting" for people's messages, and if there's no "Like" or "+1" button on their message, we'll make our own. (Likewise, apparently a person's name is no longer sufficient to indicate that one is addressing them in an e-mail -- am I right, @dear_reader?)

The problem for me is that I have my venerable awesome e-mail client Gnus set to hide quoted text in messages by default with (add-hook 'gnus-article-prepare-hook (lambda () (gnus-article-hide-citation 1))), and it thinks that "+" is the start of a quoted line -- so it hides the "+1". While there's a certain poetic justice to that, it confuses me because it makes the message look empty, and someone could do something like "+1 I'm pregnant too", causing me to miss some very important news.

The fix for this is to change the regexp pattern Gnus uses to decide if a line is a message quote or not. gnus-message-cite-prefix-regexp is built using message-cite-prefix-regexp, so I changed the value of the latter, removing the literal "+". I also found while investigating this that I already configure that variable in order to add "#>" which someone sometime during my 9 years of using Gnus must have used. The net result is (setq message-cite-prefix-regexp "\$[ ]*[-_.#[:word:]]+>+\\|[ ]*[]>|}]\$+"). (Note that some of those whitespace characters are tabs, which probably won't display properly here, but you can compare to the default value to see what I actually changed).

+1?

Aptronym

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 22:08:36 GMT

For now, the risk is real but manageable. Satellite operators can dodge the big debris and armor their satellites to withstand impact with smaller pieces. But eventually, if not cleaned up, low-Earth orbit would become too perilous for people and satellites. "It will be a huge risk for an astronaut to go to space," said John L. Junkins...

From For Space Mess, Scientists Seek Celestial Broom.

Mixed last night

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:43:20 GMT

Together we made..

(from the liquor cabinet)

Manhattan
Blueberry cardamom gimlet
Corpse Reviver #2
The Good Cork
Vieux Carre
Satan's Whiskers
Corn 'n Oil
Prosecutor
Racketeer
Aviation
Sazerac
Hendrick's and tonic
Vodka and soda
Harvard
3-2-1
Tipperary
Alcazer
Toronto
White Heather

Bottles which didn't survive

Dolin's Dry
Rittenhouse Rye 100
Bulleit Rye

Best eggcorn I've overheard in a while

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:30:59 GMT

But what really sticks in my crotch is...

Stylish

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:19:55 GMT

I noticed a couple of weeks ago that in their feature article about her, the New York Times insisted on capitalizing danah boyd's name, even though she does not do so herself.

I pointed this out to Mako, who commented that "the nyt style guide is a formidable adversary." (Observe the downcasing of nyt.)

While finally getting to the Sunday magazine from the same issue this morning over breakfast in my hotel, I stumbled on this sentence in the article about George Lucas:

They'll be like the experimental movies Lucas made in the 1960s, around the time he was at U.S.C. film school, when he recorded clouds moving over the desert and made a movie based on an E. E. Cummings poem.

"E. E. Cummings"! I guess they really don't make exceptions for anyone. Well, except for the fact that uppercase might be the correct spelling for him. Somehow, I don't think the NYT cares.

The movie referenced is "anyone lived in a pretty (how) town". Lucas is lucky that E. E. Cummings was not alive to pull a droid on him.

And yes, the NYT has also occasionally even capitalized the name of the poem.

Recently veganly cooked

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 06:12:39 GMT

In the last week-ish, I've made:

Waldorf salad in blue cheese dressing (apples, celery, walnuts, raisins, dressing based on Sheese's vegan blue cheese)
Thyme roasted rainbow carrots
Vegetable stock from all the vegetable discards of the last couple weeks
Cauliflower and red lentil curry (Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook )
Roasted shallot and onion dressing
Udon with coconut peanut sauce and broccoli
Marinara sauce
Red chili sauce (made with Guajillo and California chilis, recipe from Viva Vegan!: 200 Authentic and Fabulous Recipes for Latin Food Lovers)
Guacamole
Peruvian-ish cheezy sauce, also from Viva Vegan!: 200 Authentic and Fabulous Recipes for Latin Food Lovers
Fried rice with tofu, carrots, peas, mung bean sprouts, cashews (based on Mark Bittman's guidelines)
Tofu scramble
Chocolate chip pancakes (my favorite pancake recipe is still the simple one from the Compassionate Cook)
Banana bread with walnuts (also from the Compassionate Cook)
Quick pickled turnips
Buffalo tofu "wings"
Lots of popcorn with adobo seasoning

Sent to the ACLU today

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:51:29 GMT

I was on the brink of mindlessly clicking through the ACLU action center as usual to send an email opposing SOPA. But then I read their boilerplate text, and ended up cancelling the letter to my rep and instead sending this quick note to the ACLU:

Your SOPA suggested letter text supports current copyright law, and also backhandedly supports PIPA (the Senate version of the bill).

This is far too weak of a position. As a donor, I ask you to take a stronger position that current copyright law unjustly restricts free speech, and that no further enforcement measures should be instituted until that fundamental problem is addressed.

At least take on BOTH of these bills strongly. Most of the significant Internet is blacked out today to oppose both bills -- why would you cede so much ground to copyright maximalists? We have the support to oppose and defeat both bills.

For reference, here was their text:

While I believe it's important to protect copyrighted material online, the language of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is flawed and will lead to the blocking of lawful content.

Unlike the Senate version of the bill, SOPA eliminates the concept of sites 'dedicated to infringing activity' and enables law enforcement to target all sites that contain some infringing content -- no matter how trivial. The potential for impact on non-infringing content is much greater under SOPA than under other versions of this bill. Sites with user-generated content, like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, would be especially vulnerable, as one small piece of infringing content could lead to blocking the entire site.

Even though proposed changes would narrow the amount of lawful content impacted, the changes don't go far enough. It is still likely that search engines will end up blocking access to perfectly legal online content.

Congress should focus not just on the goal of protecting copyright owners, but also protecting the speech rights of consumers and providers who are reading and producing wholly non-infringing content. Congress must eliminate the collateral damage to protected non-infringing content. Only in that way will Congress truly achieve its goal of protecting authors while respecting the constitutional right to free speech.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but I dislike it when good organizations take weak positions unnecessarily. Usually this is not a problem with the ACLU, for me. It doesn't help that I keep seeing this meme everywhere in the anti-SOPA/PIPA conversation: "I agree we need to do something about piracy, but not this..."

I don't think we need to do anything to fix violations of an extraordinarily unjust law until the law itself is fixed. I don't find that to be a very radical position.

At FOSDEM in February

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:19:00 GMT

I will be helping to represent the FSF at FOSDEM next month in Brussels. I'm speaking in the Legal Issues Devroom on Saturday 2012-02-04. The presentation is called "Is copyleft being framed?":

This short talk will address the following questions, to inspire discussion and contemplation about how we frame descriptions of the state of licensing in free software.

Numbers are increasingly being cited to show that the use of copyleft licenses, specifically the GPL, is declining. What do these numbers actually show, who is propagating them, and why? What do or might other numbers show?

Is the "percentage of free software projects which use copyleft licenses" a useful way to judge the success of copyleft? Does an increase in the percentage of projects using non-copyleft permissive licenses indicate a failure of copyleft?

As a small related case study, what role have the licensing terms of popular mobile application stores played in this debate, and how have those terms changed the frame of the discussion?

Let me know if you'll be there too!

Next Time

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:26:26 GMT

I'm trying to figure out how to get two 27"x33" framed pictures (glass) safely from Detroit to Boston. In reading about Delta's policies on fragile luggage, I learned about their Christmas Tree policy. Who knew.

Christmas Trees

Do you want to bring some holiday cheer to your destination? You can indeed bring your Christmas tree with you. We will accept cut Christmas trees as limited-release baggage on all flights within the United States, including flights to/from Hawaii. However, all Christmas trees will be subject to baggage allowance and baggage size restrictions, as well as some other rules:

Trees need to be adequately packaged with the root ball or cut base and all branches wrapped and secured using a burlap-type material.

If you are traveling into Hawaii and checking a Christmas tree as baggage, you must include it on your declaration form and the tree must pass agricultural inspection.

One policy I'm glad I don't have to concern myself with this Christmas? The Cremated Remains policy. "TSA suggests the passenger purchase a temporary or permanent crematory container of lighter material such as wood or plastic which can easily be x-rayed." Is there a Ralph's around here?

I welcome suggestions for transporting/shipping these pictures.

Epigraph for Mako

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 05:45:44 GMT

Mako's article "In Defense of Negativity" should begin with a Mitch Hedberg epigraph:

I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.

Where Shall I Wander

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:29:16 GMT

Google Maps is now mapping the indoors. I saw an ad for this while passing through MSP yesterday (given how much time I spend on the Internet, it's strange and a little embarrassing to learn about new things on the Internet from airport billboards), since one of their initial targets is the infamous Mall of America.

Detailed floor plans automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed in on a building where indoor map data is available. The familiar “blue dot” icon indicates your location within several meters, and when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the interface will automatically update to display which floor you’re on. All this is achieved by using an approach similar to that of ‘My Location’ for outdoor spaces, but fine tuned for indoors.

Thoughts about this:

Okay, having a map of Ikea or an airport on my phone might be kind of nice.
Shouldn't they have launched this years ago when people still went to malls?
Shouldn't they have launched this at least earlier in the year, in time for people to know about it and have it before the one time each year when people who don't go to malls still maybe go to the mall?
How does it know where you are, when cell and GPS so often don't work in these places? "fine tuned for indoors" is a very mysterious phrase. Based on nearby access points?
Is your location also being transmitted if you use this service? In other words, will Google now know which stores you shop at, how many times you use the restroom, and whether you were actually shopping for gifts for other people?
Relatedly, will this be free software? Or will it rely on proprietaryness in order to do things users would prefer it didn't do? (Answer: It's proprietary software, part of the existing proprietary Google Maps mobile application.)
Will they sell data to the stores and malls?
Will they start indicating various promotions on the maps?
Will these promotions be targeted based on your past meandering behavior?
Are they mapping less-commercial spaces, like museums?
Are they making the map data available for others to use? Especially for truly public spaces?
How do we get the functional part of this into OpenStreetMap?
Is Google secretly working on computer-piloted mobility scooters?
Where am I?

Title from John Ashbery

How I make decisions

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:39:38 GMT

I just missed an Iron Blogger deadline. I knew I was going to miss it, because I was going to be on a plane Sunday night, not landing until after 6am Monday morning (the deadline is 6am EST Mondays).

The penalty for missing the deadline is putting $5 in the drinking/eating pool. I then realized that I was fully prepared to pay $4.95 for a GoGo in-flight internet pass, in order to be able to post and save myself a nickel. It being an overnight flight, I intended to sleep as much as possible, but I pulled out my laptop to do the post while I was enjoying my complimentary beverage.

That's when I discovered the $4.95 pass was not available for my flight. The $4.95 pass was still advertised, but when attempting to purchase it, I was instead delivered an HTTP error. I hit up the rep for some live chat, and he explained it was because the flight was too long. When I asked why that policy made sense for a flight on which nearly everyone would be sleeping anyway, and explained that I just wanted the internet for a few minutes, he disconnected me.

After thinking about it some more, and failing to sleep, I decided I was actually willing to pay $12.95 for the next tier pass, in order to do the post. Doing so would preserve my honor, keep a streak going, and at the same time, generate the topic for the post!

The $12.95 one wouldn't work either. When attempting to purchase a pass, I was delivered an error which said that I needed to purchase a pass to use the internet to purchase a pass to use the internet to purchase a pass to...

As it turns out, I guess I paid $5 for a post topic. And no sleep.

Cranberry Negroni

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 05:51:33 GMT

I'd like to claim that I thought of something before Mark Bittman did, but actually, he thought of it first, though I thought of it before I read his thinking of it, and it was within the same week (maybe), and my version is a little different.

It being Fall, Boston Organics has been trying to bury me with fresh cranberries. I realized that even after making cranberry sauce, cranberry jalapeno dipping sauce, and cranberry orange walnut bread, I'd still have cranberries left.

I thought cranberry syrup would be a useful addition to the bar, so I made some, borrowing the recipe from Smitten Kitchen (use the food processor to chop the fresh cranberries unless you enjoy chasing small round objects all around your kitchen).

At first I was working on a cocktail with the syrup and and Q Ginger, which I'd just stumbled on at Julio's during a trip in search of Ransom gin. Q Ginger is a bit misnamed — the cardamom and coriander flavors are very strong. Altogether, it's a good match with cranberry, but I'm not yet happy enough with any of my experiments to suggest that someone else should drink them.

Then, Anjali told me about how she'd added some Campari to her cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving dinner. That led me to think about doing the reverse, and adding cranberry to my Campari — the Negroni being one of my favorite Campari cocktails.

About an hour after this conversation, I turned to Bittman's column in last week's Times magazine on using up Thanksgiving leftovers, and there's a recipe for a Cranberry Negroni. Weird, huh? I don't think I'd like an entire equal part of cranberry sauce though — and I don't think cranberry sauce is ideal here (but as a use of leftovers, sure, why not).

Cranberry Negroni

1 oz Bombay Dry Gin
1 oz Noilly Prat (or other sweet vermouth)
3/4 oz Campari
1/4 oz cranberry syrup
Orange twist

Shake with ice; strain into a cocktail glass. Squeeze the orange twist over the glass, and then discard or drop in (I confess, I removed it before drinking).

Next up, a Cranberry Old Pal?

So that's how you get there

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 05:14:08 GMT

Send bricks to Nintendo

Mon, 16 May 2011 16:29:23 GMT

Connectivity can be a force for autonomy and freedom, or it can be used for control and subjugation.

The Nintendo 3DS is an example of the latter.

Okay, yeah, I just said a cute video game console is a threat to personal freedom. Hear me out. If you haven't read the highlights of Nintendo's Terms of Service for the 3DS yet, you should do that.

On one hand, it's "just" a games console. On the other hand, it's a computer, marketed to children, which monitors your location (based on proximity to wifi access points), uploads your photos and messages to Nintendo's servers (giving them a license to re-use that information in various ways), and tracks your activity. Now that's entertainment.

If you wanted your Nintendo computer to stop doing those things, you could try to install some 3rd-party "homebrew" software on it. Except then, according to the Terms, Nintendo would "brick" your device — render it inoperable, when the modified software is detected. Would you accept Ford disabling your car because you had a mechanic friend fix a problem using some aftermarket parts? Microsoft breaking your computer hardware because you installed Firefox?

The ability to stop your electronics from spying on you is an important freedom to defend, even if you don't ever plan on purchasing a Nintendo device. Such terms, and the Digital Restrictions Management software that enforces them, are a problem in all areas of digital life. It's the same fundamental strategy as Apple controlling what you can install on the iPhone or iPad, or Sony sending police officers to a programmer's house because he showed other people how to modify their own computers to make them able to run non-Sony-approved software.

If we don't set a strong precedent against this behavior, it will become more prevalent. If we lose the ability to install what we like on our computers, then we lose the ability to use those computers in any way that isn't pre-approved by a corporation. We lose it not only because we ourselves can't install some software — maybe we hate changing anything on our computers at all — but because the people who write the software we rely on lose that freedom, which ends up impacting even the most non-technical of computer users.

Companies like to portray anyone arguing for this freedom as criminals just wanting to illegally copy software. But that's obviously not true -- a person who follows all laws, even the most absurd, might still want to install something to stop Nintendo from receiving copies of her photos or reporting on her location. Companies use the threat of illegal copying to justify massive infringements on real personal freedoms.

People often say, "well, just don't buy it then". I agree — don't buy it. But don't think this is merely a consumer issue. Terms like Nintendo's are backed by the force of criminal law — the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US for example — which can put you in jail for helping people to modify their own computers. So this is more than a mere preference issue, it's also one of law and ethics. It's not a free market when one side has coercive state resources in play to prop up its arbitrary business model.

To help send this message, I just donated to send 5 bricks to Nintendo. I hope you'll send one or five too. The campaign has a goal of sending 200 bricks by the end of today (Monday, May 16th). Nintendo clearly wants to get into the brick-making business, so surely they'll appreciate the extra inventory.

(Disclosure: While I do work for the Free Software Foundation and am paid partly to run the Defective by Design campaign, I really did donate, and support this campaign personally.)

Oh yes I did

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 03:24:35 GMT