Support craft beer!

I like beer. I like stouts and IPAs, I like ales and lagers. I like Belgian beer, British beer, German beer, and American microbrewed beer.

One of the great things I've discovered at brewpubs is that you can get a half gallon of beer to go in a glass jar called a growler. The beer stays fresh about 7-10 days in a refrigerated, sealed growler, and once the growler is open it's good for another few days.

Helen and I are going up to Lake Tahoe next weekend for a friend's wedding, and I want to bring back some beer from Fifty Fifty Brewing. It's a four hour drive back - certainly, in the summer, enough time for the beer to warm up.

So what's a beer guy to do? Buy a specialized beer growler cooler of course! So I went over to the nice folks at Cape Cod Beer, and ordered a growler cooler. It can fit up to two growlers, and looks like it should keep the beer cold for a little while. If I'm on a longer trip, I can even use ice packs to chill beer.

I hope to keep buying craft beer on trips and check the beer cooler on the way home. Great way to extend the trip a bit.

Failing airlines

For those following along at home, 3 airlines have halted operations in the US in the past week.

A moment of silence for Aloha (intra Hawaii and Hawaii-west coast), ATA (low cost carrier, code sharer with Southwest), and Skybus (Columbus based ultra low cost carrier, started up last May.).

2 bicyclists killed in Cupertino when deputy drives across double yellow line

Two riders, Matt Peterson and Kristy Gough, were killed on Steven's Canyon Road in Cupertino on Sunday when a Sheriff's deputy crossed the double yellow lines and struck them. The riders were riding single file on the shoulder. The deputy possibly fell asleep at the wheel.

Sports Illustrated has a pretty good editorial about the dangers of mixing cycling and cars.

A phrase not on the internet

I coined a phrase this weekend after going off piste. "It burns when I ski."

I figured I must not be original, but this phrase does not exist anywhere on the internets.

Evil ad

Via Facebook/Scrabulous, I'll let this ad speak for itself

2 patent applications published!

APPARATUS, SYSTEM, AND METHOD FOR ENHANCING HELP RESOURCE SELECTION IN A COMPUTER APPLICATION
APPARATUS, SYSTEM, AND METHOD FOR CONTEXT-AWARE AUTHORING TRANSFORM

Luxury < safety

Attention bikers:

Headlights and taillights are both legally required for night riding and a really good idea.

Bluetooth headsets are luxuries.

That is all.

Helen wants a dog

Helen wants a dog. She wants a dog very badly. She's desperate enough that she's even suggested a puggle.

We're in an apartment with a great price, great character, and great location. However, it's in our lease that we can't have a pet. Even if we were in a better place, we both travel a lot and work long hours. It wouldn't be fair to a dog. A smaller, lower maintenance pet might be ok in the right apartment, and so I broached the issue with Helen.

Me: what about a bunny?
Me: as a pet?
Me: when we want to go skiing, we can make stew
Me: and start over with a cuter one
Helen: I was almost considering it ... then you said stew

But I thought all of you were broken!

Apparently I have a genetic disorder: photic sneeze reflex (aka ACHOO (Autosomal dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst syndrome)). I sneeze when it's too bright. No, seriously. Helen thinks it's funny.

My mom used to tell me people without this are the broken ones. Now I know that it's really a syndrome!

I biked to Half Moon Bay, and all I got was this pumpkin. And the makings of a cool scar.

Last Saturday, a Googler named John arranged a bike ride called "The Pumpkin Fetch". The premise is just to bike to Half Moon Bay, buy a pumpkin, and bike back. Also, we were required to buy pumpkins. (Apparently John's been doing this ride for quite some time.) I'm not an amazing biker, but I figured a 60 mile bike ride would be fine.

The ride requires two ascents from basically sea level to the top of the hill between Silicon Valley and the Pacific Ocean. Most people call it going up to Skyline Boulevard. I've biked up to Skyline about 5 times now, but never twice in one day. I knew it would be a strenuous ride, but John said that he took his time and would be ok with people a bit slower.

I left home at 7:30 am. I met my friend Jim and John at 8 am at Google. It was pretty chilly last Saturday, and I didn't really warm up until about 3 miles out from Google (9 miles total into the ride). Jim and John kept a pretty fast pace to King's Mountain, and I just tried to keep up. We had a pretty leisurely ascent up Kings Mountain (according to Jim, I took 48 minutes from Tripp Road to Skyline). We then turned north and biked to 92. 92 is a busy road to Half Moon Bay. We descended on 92, and then passed quite a few cars while we biked on the shoulder.

We picked up our pumpkins at a small farm on 92 and took a bit of a break. John purchased a 29 pound pumpkin, and I picked up 50 cent pumpkin - one I'm very proud of!

After the pumpkin selection, we headed west towards Route 1, and then south on Route 1.

The second ascent was up Tunitas Creek Road. From the description, I thought Tunitas would be just a little bit more challenging than King's Mountain. I was wrong - Tunitas is one heck of a road. It's beautiful, not many people, but fairly steep for a few miles.

After one of my many stops on the way up Tunitas, my right foot slipped while trying to clip into my pedals, and came back against the chainring. I started lightly bleeding, but there wasn't much I could do but continue on.

About 3 miles from the top of Tunitas creek, I got a flat in my rear tube. I tried to replace it, but broke off the tip of the Presta valve on my spare. I was trying to reach Jim, who was far ahead, and let him know that I got a flat. Since we were in the middle of nowhere, it took me 15 minutes to get a text out. In the meantime, a very nice biker named Ryan stopped and helped me out - we busted a third tube before we realized that my tire also had a hole in it.

John came back down from the top to help out. Some duct tape, a patch kit, and 15 minutes later, I was on my way again. We reached the top of Skyline again, and I biked home.

I recorded 66 miles and about 6000 feet of vertical. John got quite a lot of compliments on riding up Tunitas with a big pumpkin on the back of his bike.

GPS data and the map of the ride.

Las Vegas!

Helen and I are off to Las Vegas this weekend, and I'm curious - what would you do in Vegas? We have 3 shows to see, and we're staying kind of south strip.

What's really worth going to? What made your trip to Vegas? What stunk?

So far, this is what I want to see:

• Hofbrauhaus (it's Oktoberfest time!)
• Bellagio's Fountains
• The Venetian

Anything else must do? Is the New York New York roller coaster worth it?

I might be a little old

I might be getting old, or at least too interested in the economy. I heard the Fed cut the federal funds rate a half percent, and all I could think was "What's this mean for inflation?"

Elmo's Fire

I shouldn't be surprised

Bush commutes Libby's jail time.

President's statement

Article about it

Things to learn before going to a foreign country

I just got back from Austria, and while on the trip I figured out that I didn't prepare enough. There are a few things I think I should have learned before I went to a country where I don't speak the native language. (Although, Austrians spoke great English in a commercial setting. Gas station employees switched to English easily, as did servers at restaurants.)

How to say:

• Excuse me
• Sorry
• Do you speak English?
• I don't speak X
• Please, thank you
• May I have a ?
• Do you have a menu in English?
  

What the road signs look like. For example, European road signs are different from American ones. Who knew this meant "no bikes" as opposed to "caution, bikes"?

Helen giggled whenever I tried to speak German.

Bad news, good news

Bad news: the USPS is raising stamp rates to $0.41 per stamp on May 14.

Good news: the USPS is offering a new "forever stamp" that can always be used to mail a first class letter, no matter how much stamp rates go up. (You can't put it on a package and expect it to be worth the current first class stamp rate, but I never have tried that.)

It makes a ton of sense to introduce "forever stamps", assuming that first class stamps rise with inflation - I use maybe 50 stamps a year, and they raised rates this time 15 months apart. I could never go through a roll of stamps in between fair increases.

I lost my temper

Today, I biked to work. I was in the bike lane, all the way to the right. A Prius driver was on my left, with her right blinker on. Well, when the light turned green, she tried to get ahead of me and make the right in front of me.

From talking to other guys to bike to work, I'm not the only one who is sometimes cut off by a recently passing car. (It happens every once in a while to all of us it seems)

Bikers aren't nearly as slow as drivers seem to think they are. Or cars aren't as fast as their drivers think. Either way!

Hint

I have a new favorite drink. The Company recently added a new bottled water, and I adore it. It's called Hint. I drink about 6 bottles of Hint a day at work. It's lightly flavored water with 0 calories - it's so lightly flavored that I feel like I'm drinking water, but it's flavored enough that I don't feel bored like I do chugging water all day long.

If you want to lose weight

If you want to lose weight, you might want to stop looking at the prices at the grocery store.

Breaking news

Virginia Tech Shooting Kills at Least 22.

Why Snapfish is the worst site ever

Snapfish has earned some wrath today: they force you to log into see a photo album and they charge you to download the originals. They charge me to download the images my mom took.

Flying flying flying

I fly about 50,000 miles per year. Assuming that's split into 10 round trips, with non flying time of 4 hours per trip (layovers and getting to the airport early), and an aircraft speed of 500 miles per hour, that's about 140 hours per year of travel. 1.6% of my year.

Boooo Dollar

Dollar rental charges $25/day if you're under 25, as opposed to the $15 that other companies charge.

I tried to rent a Charger and they gave me a Grand Marquis. Lame.

Bob Marley went forth

Bob Marley went forth and multiplied.

My favorite thing? 3 kids born in one month:

Stephen, born April 20, 1972, to Rita
Robert "Robbie", born May 16, 1972, to Pat Williams
Rohan, born May 19, 1972, to Janet Hunt

Google Maps is still the best

New York, NY to Dublin, Ireland

That's right, no flying for you

At least they were honest (and spell well)

From: "Parr, Kelli"
To: Matt
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 07:21:16 -0500
Subject: Fraudulent Spam.

Dear Homeowner,

You have been pre-approved for a $438 ,000 'refinance' Loan at a 3.23 % Fixed Rate.

This offer is being extended to you unconditionally and your credit is in no way a factor.

To take Advantage of this Limited Time opportunity all we ask is that you visit our Website and complete the 1 minute post Approval Form.

http://refinance_approval.saveloan005.com

Sincerely,

Sincerely yours,
Brett Abraham

NovaForm + Roomba?

When I crawled into bed last night, I felt a little congested. But I hadn't felt congested before. So I decided I should change my sheets and probably vacuum my bed.

Lo and behold, my Roomba does not like to work on my NovaForm mattress. The Roomba's cleaning rotors suck the mattress cover in, and the Roomba can't go anywhere. Maybe I'll have to do this the old fashioned way...

New favorite site!

Thanks to Fark, I've found my new favorite site. hockeyfights.com.

Goalie fights are beautiful! And this fight last night between Buffalo and Ottowa is fun.

Fat fingers forge fear

Every time I mistype my password at work I get:

Username or password not recognized.

and I worry I've been fired and that I haven't been told. :'(

Tragedy of the Commons

The Tragedy of the Commons. I think reading an essay on this should be in every high school English class.

Colbert + O'Relly

Colbert on The O'Reilly Factor


O'Reilly on the Colbert Report


Remarks:
O'Reilly likes to yell, and Colbert didn't rise to it, although O'Reilly was baiting him.
Colbert was so patronizing that O'Reilly couldn't find anything to yell and get angry about.
Seeing O'Reilly on the Colbert Report was kind of anticlimactic.

(Belated) New Year's Resolution

The Alpine Meadows National Ski Patrol is looking for more patrolmen. They have a "ski check" that you have to pass to be a patrolman. Well, I ski most of their terrain, but not their double blacks or some of their off piste terrain.

In 2007, I want to get in good enough shape so that in the 2007-2008 ski season I can train to be a patrolman. Basically this is a 2 year resolution: year 1, fitness to train. Year 2: train on the terrain and gain a bit more strength to be able to take a loaded toboggan down all of that terrain. Then, fall 2008, take that ski check and pass it.

"But daddy, I'm only 5"

University Ave, Palo Alto. A father has his five year old son in his arms.

Father: "You have to be, pretty much, first in your class every year for that"

Zombies!

On New Year's Eve, Helen and I went to one of her LA friend's parents' house for a small party. One of the other people there brought a student movie he acted in for us to watch.

Towards the end of the movie, there are zombies and there's a non zombie guy who is leading the zombies. This dialog still makes me smile:

Leader: What do we want?
Zombies: Brains
Leader: When do we want it?
Zombies: Brains

Edit: apparently this wasn't as original as I'd thought.

Loyalty: hard to earn, easy to lose

Usually, mileage from United Airlines flights posts on my US Airways account within a couple days. When I flew back from Pittsburgh in early December, I didn't get my miles normally debited. So I mailed in the ticket stub, as they say to do after a couple weeks. A couple weeks later, no miles posted.

So I email them:

... I haven't yet received the miles, and miles are always deposited within 2 days. I even mailed in the ticket to the
mailing address you specify...

They reply, 8 days later:

To credit missing flight activity ... in your Dividend Miles account, we require both a copy of the ticket receipt and the original boarding passes to be submitted ...

Ok, at least pretend to read my email, please.

So I call. I have status on US Airways, so I call my spiffy elite line. I figured I'd get some perky, happy customer service rep - I mean, shouldn't frequent flyers get better service? Nope, the CSR was completely unenthusiastic and bored.

I used to be happy with US Airways: usually on time, usually pretty good service, usually just kind of another mainline carrier. In 3 events (miles not normally posting, lousy and slow email support, unenthusiastic customer support reps), in the span of a month, I've completely lost any enthusiasm to fly with them.

Mission: make it to Boston

I got bumped on the way to Maine and on the way back, netting me two free round trips on United anywhere in the continental 48. I was hoping to get bumped tomorrow because Seat Counter says my flight is sold out.

Which leads me to tonight's story. One of my friends called me tonight to pick her up at SFO. Turns out her flight to Vegas was so delayed she'd miss her flight to Charlotte, so she decided to rebook. Well, the earliest she can get to Charlotte (out of San Jose, SF, or Oakland) is Monday morning. I would assume it's the same issue for me heading into Boston, Manchester, or Portland. So I'll keep my seat tomorrow, and make sure to arrive on time! (She was in line for 4+ hours between trying to check in and trying to rebook)

No means no, not "maybe next week"

I have opted out of receiving credit card offers based on the lender running my score and then offering me a card. However, that doesn't stop groups you work with from sending you offers.

Both United and US Airways have been sending me card offers to link with my frequent flier accounts. Not only that, but they send an offer every time they mail me something anyway and they send me offers about once a week in the mail. I've had to call both of them and tell them to go away.

Iran: score -1, troll

Iran Opens Conference on Holocaust

Way to bone that one

I use Yahoo TV to see tv listings. Until today, you could look at local listings without signing in. Now you can't. And it's uber ugly.

Ok, so what do I use for TV listings online? Suggestions, readers?

Isn't that strange...

Only two British air carriers and two American air carriers (and two grandfathered other carriers) can fly US-Heathrow routes due to some 1970s agreement.

Plan of the day

Current plan: summer of 2010, take a 3 month leave from work and travel, or bike from California to Maine.

Nerd Humor

Nerd humor for you about sudo from xkcd.

A statement I wish were true

I wish this statement were true:

"(I sleep well every night, but) I get my best sleep on planes!"

This year I will do 10 trips to the east coast, and 9 of those have red eyes. Anyone have secrets for bulletproof sleep on planes?

Sororities and the maximum number of residents

Carnegie Mellon's sororities only have 16 or fewer females living in them. The rumor was that more than 16 females living together was forbidden as the state considered it a brothel.

Not true, apparently. Snopes says it's not true in general either.

(But a random joke site says it's true!)

Midway

Chicago Midway, most boxed in airport I've ever seen.

Port

I don't like wine very much. But I have developed an affinity for port. In fact, I like 6 Grapes a lot, and my favorite retailer carries it.

Does anyone have any suggestions for other good ports to try?

(I still love good beer. If you like beer and want good ratings on beer, check out Beer Advocate)

Opt out of receiving credit card offers

I hate receiving credit card offers. I don't need to receive them, I've got 1.5 credit cards, I don't need more cards. And if I want one, it won't be because I get an offer in the mail, it'll be because I researched it.

You can opt out of credit card offers - Opt out prescreen works with the credit bureaus so you can stop getting them.

Also, if you get credit card offers, don't forget to shred them so no one searches your trash and gets a card in your name!

(FYI: the site is FTC endorsed)

Delta + US Airways = crazy delicious?

US Airways trying to merge with Delta

This is big; as a former Pittsburgh resident, I'm a big fan of US Airways. As a kid, I loved Delta (because it brought me to Disney World).

Summary for those too lazy to read the article: Delta is operating in bankruptcy. US Airways is offering 8 billion, not to Delta, but to Delta's creditors. Delta doesn't want to merge.

The combined company would be called Delta. It won't happen until at least January when Congress re-convenes (they have to make sure it's not violating anti-trust).

Tier Matching

I fly too much.

There are three major airline alliances in the world, Star Alliance (Notable partners: US Airways, United, Lufthansa, and Air Canada), oneworld (American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific) and SkyTeam (Delta, Northwest, Continental, and KLM). The major benefit of these is earning miles on fewer airlines: if I fly on United, I get miles on US Airways (or vice versa). In effect, you need 3 frequent flier programs to cover the major US carriers. (Jet Blue and Southwest are different - they don't partner, and their miles expire much more quickly)

Well, not only can you earn miles for free tickets, but you can also earn status. Well, I thought that was cool - I flew so much on United and US Airways this year that I got Silver Preferred on US Airways. But the problem is I will probably start flying United a lot more as my work trips to Pittsburgh are going to lessen. And if I had status on United, I could get cool things like Economy Plus seats.

Well, here's the airlines' dirty little secret: you can ask for matching status on other airlines. Today, I requested status on American and United. And you can too. Sometimes you might have to ask for it through a travel agent, or you fax things in. But don't forget this, if you ever fly too much - you can be 'cool' on many airlines even if you don't fly with them much. I know that right now, I select slightly more expensive United or US Airways tickets because I get more miles. Other airlines are smart to compete with that bonus to level the playing field.

I have a problem

I have a problem. I spend a lot of time looking at flight prices and thinking about whether I should travel or not.

I spend a lot of time at Kayak. Every week, I read my domestic and international fare deals from SmarterTravel.com.

One thing I don't get is why I will sometimes see longer, more expensive flights that take off earlier and land later listed by the same airline on a search. For example, let's say I'm traveling to Pittsburgh, I just saw these two flight options listed:

Flight 1, US Airways, departs SFO 10:30pm, lands PIT 6:00 am. $499
Flight 2, US Airways, departs SFO 8:00pm, goes through Chicago, lands PIT 7:00am. $509

Now, I don't know about you, but I'd prefer flight 1 (too bad United has flights for half price that aren't direct). Well, I would go so far to say I don't want to see flight 2 in my results - I have to be at SFO earlier, I land at Pittsburgh later, and I pay more money.

However, people have departure time needs. People want to arrive by a certain time. People have airline preferences. And they don't want their searches to be more complex. I propose that an airline search doesn't even display flights that take off earlier, land later, and cost more that are on the same airline.

This creates another problem. What if I book a couple days after my friend does, and I want the more expensive, less useful flights so I can be on the same flight as him. How do we avoid users being confused that what was an option now isn't?

People who look for the cheapest, or direct with less regard to cost, flights won't often notice the longer flight, more money problem - it's people who are optimizing for both time and money who will. So this is a smaller crowd we're talking about.

I've included pseudocode about the first way I can think to filter. I can't figure out how to make this any better than O(number of flights^2) (but I've only spent 10 minutes), though with airlines separated, it gets to be a bit more reasonable in the real world.

List<flight> logicalChoices = new List<flight>();

for (Airline airline : airlines) {
  flights = search(departureDateRange, departureAirport,
                   arrivalTimeRange, arrivalAirport, 
                   airline);
  flights.sortByPriceAscending();
  for (i=0; i < flights.length; i++) {
    boolean displayFlight = true;
    for (int j = 0; j < i; j++) {
      if (flight[j].totalDuration < flight[i].totalDuration
              && flight[j].departureTime > flight[i].departureTime
              && flight[j].arrivalTime < flight[i].arrivalTime) {
        // assert flight[j].price < flight[i].price - ordered by price asc
        displayFlight = false;
        break;
      }
    }
    if (displayFlight) {
      logicalChoices.add(flight[i]); 
    }
  }
}

Display logicalChoices to user

The magic of voicemail

Attention potential callers:

If you call me 3 times and don't leave a voice mail, that's silly. Voice mail was intended for the type of communication that doesn't need a reply, or even the type that means "Please call me back". Text messaging works too. Also, email. 3 calls with no voicemail? That's just plain strange.

I used to think I was liberal

Proposition 1C is a California Proposition for $2.9 billion in bonds for housing.

The first thing the bill (on some ads, the only thing) supporters mention is that the bond includes money for homeless shelters and battered women's shelters. That's about 300 million out of 2.9 billion - a little over ten percent of the total money. The positioning of the bill is actually a huge turnoff for me on this bill - don't pitch the bill based on how ten percent of the money will be spent!

The other thing that makes me dislike this bill: California housing is expensive. If we subsidize housing, it will only get more expensive for everyone. Let the free market take care of it.

I dislike bonds. On this proposition, over the next 30 years the people will pay off $2.85 billion in principal and $3.3 billion in interest. It's not awesome to spend taxpayer money to pay off bond interest. If I had the option to pay $84 in taxes for this immediately or $182 over the next 30 years, I'd choose the $84 in taxes this year! (Values calculated as $2.85 billion / 33.8 million people and ($2.85 billion + $3.3 billion) / 33.8 million people, assuming the population stays constant. I'm too lazy to factor in how population growth will affect my total amount)

Of course, I probably will leave California in the next 30 years, but I'm also paying past bond interest with my taxes - if all programs were funded by bonds, every tax payer would pay about 2 times as much as she does currently. I say we use bonds as a last ditch measure, and just pay as we go.

Daylight Saving

When I was a kid, every clock in the house would have to be readjusted for Daylight Saving time. I'd often go quickly around the house and update all the clocks.

In 1996, Windows 95 prompted me to change the clock - wow, something that (more or less) changed itself!

This year, on the other hand, my alarm clock and computer both switched themselves - silently! So I woke up and thought I'd only slept in until 6:30 am. I had to be reminded by other people that I'd had an extra hour of sleep.

Some day I could imagine not even knowing that the time had switched, I just sleep in one day too long or too short.

I'm not cut out for this

I had a dream about snow last night. I dreamed it snowed 4 feet in Palo Alto, and therefore I was happier than all get-out.

This tells me a few things:
1. I probably need to add a blanket to my bed!
2. I probably should consider eventually moving to a colder climate.
3. I can't wait for the ski season.

Michael J Fox Missouri ad

Thanksgiving, redux

Right now, the cheapest flight from SJC/SFO to Boston, Manchester, or Portland for Thanksgiving (Wednesday-Sunday) is about $650.

Direct flight from SFO to Heathrow + hotel is about $700.

Facebook jumps the Shark

This site warns that Facebook will put sponsored stories on their news feed. And today, I logged in and found they have linked to the Washington Post with an article named Celebritology. I can't find a way to turn it off.

I already ditched MySpace in June. I almost just deleted my account - it's that annoying.

On notice: Delta

For Christmas originally my flights looked like this:
San Jose->LAX, 10am-11:15am
LAX->Logan, 12:20pm-8:40pm

Well, tonight I logged in to Expedia and my flights looked like this:
San Jose->LAX, 10am-11:15am
LAX->Logan, 11am-7:32pm

I've had flights rescheduled after booking before, but I've never had them schedule me out of a flight without being notified & automatically booked on a comparable trip. I wonder if they would have notified me before my flights!

Partially hydrogenated oil

I urge everyone who is a fan of Costco to complain about the prevalence of trans fat in many of their foods. For such a progressive company (living wages, trust in the customers and employees) I'm amazed they don't have a policy against it yet.

Youtube

Was this filmed in front of a TGI Friday's?

Getting things done

I have decided I am not getting enough of my 'core job' done (I have lots of things to say I do, but I'm not making enough progress on what I am really judged by)

I will therefore:
1. Attend fewer meetings
2. Make todo lists each day

On Notice!

Make your own

I just emailed this to Ticketmaster (legal@ticketmaster.com), and I encourage you to do something similar:

To whom it may concern:

I disapprove of the following clause on my user info page (especially the bolded section):

By purchasing a ticket to an event, or completing this registration form in order to be able to purchase a ticket to an event or to bid in an auction, you indicate that you consent to Ticketmaster sharing your e-mail address and other information (e.g., venues, teams, artists' representatives and fan clubs, promoters and leagues), and that you consent to those involved in the event using your information to contact you by e-mail or other means to send you marketing or other messages or using or disclosing your information in other ways. Please contact them directly to learn about their policies.

I believe you need to clearly specify to the artists, venues, teams, etc what is proper use of my email address. They have no right to disclose my email address to a third party. I believe you should work with them to define what is appropriate use of my address (notification of a venue change, show cancellation, one time invitation to the fan club, etc) instead of just passing the buck. I also believe I should be able to opt out of the sharing of my address with a party other than Ticketmaster.

This is completely unacceptable from a privacy standpoint.

Want another reason to hate Ticketmaster?

From Ticketmaster's user info update page:

By purchasing a ticket to an event, or completing this registration form in order to be able to purchase a ticket to an event or to bid in an auction, you indicate that you consent to Ticketmaster sharing your e-mail address and other information ∫ (e.g., venues, teams, artists' representatives and fan clubs, promoters and leagues), and that you consent to those involved in the event using your information to contact you by e-mail or other means to send you marketing or other messages or using or disclosing your information in other ways. Please contact them directly to learn about their policies.

Basically: if you buy tickets to Blue Man Group at the Cumberland County Civic Center (like I have), you consent to Blue Man Group, the Civic Center, and the BMG fan club spamming you. And maybe to them selling your email address to another company.

Not cool.

Google Transit + Pittsburgh = Crazy Delicious

5000 Forbes to Pittsburgh International Airport (CMU to the airport)
5000 Forbes to 300 Waterfront Drive West, Homestead, PA (CMU to the movie theatre)

Lost Luggage

I flew to Pittsburgh last weekend (and no, I don't want to talk about last night Steelers' game).

I flew United to Las Vegas McCarran, then transferred to my usual airline. I had an hour and a half layover, but I skipped the slots in Las Vegas.

My checked bag didn't make it. And that's not so rare apparently. Out of the 8 people I talked to who flew to Pittsburgh from California this weekend, 4 lost their luggage. One lost her luggage on a direct flight!

I got my bag 18 hours after landing, so that worked - but I can't find any news about a recent surge in lost luggage. I assume it might be due to more people checking bags due to the new TSA rules. It might just be noise - but it sure is strange.

You down with TSA?

According to the TSA's banned item list I still can't bring gel shaving cream, economy sized saline solution, or drinking water on the plane. Still.

I thought this was resolved! Seriously, no water?

I think some kind of cross referencing is in order

Today, I got an application in the mail from my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon. Ok, so maybe a master's application makes sense - I'm an alumnus! Nope, it's a first year, undergraduate application.

I think that the alumni association could talk to the admissions department and check that people who graduated from Carnegie Mellon don't need to do undergrad there again!

(Jim points out that it might be because I signed up for the Carnegie Mellon Admission Council. I think it might be because my smiling face is in it.)

Mac Ads

If you haven't seen the Mac ads, I recommend them highly. Even if you're a PC user, you should enjoy them.

I heard about some new Mac ad ideas today, and also enjoyed them - if a little too out there for Apple to use. Enjoy!

September 11, 2006

I had grandiose dreams about writing a long essay about how 9/11/2001 changed me. I never really found the words. Here's a brief account of what I wanted to say, on the fifth anniversary:

On September 11, 2001, at about 9:30 AM, I was in Mr. Haskell's Senior Religion/Theology class. Then, Principal Mullen made an announcement - "Two planes have hit the World Trade Center in New York. If you have family you need to contact, please come to the office." I asked if it was a drill - it seemed too outlandish, too violent to be true.

The class continued, but we started talking about the Just War theory. In my next class, Latin, we went to the library and watched the second tower fall.

I won't lie, living in Maine makes one feel safe and secure. Violence is an exception, not a rule. I lived my life in the belief that nothing bad could happen in America - wars, bombs, hijackings, and chaos were all international. I was innocent. I definitely lost a lot of my innocence that day. I also lost what I thought was a guarantee of a safe life.

(Slate has a graphic novel depiction of the 9/11 report.)

No Ketchup Dinner

I just had an idea for a dinner party: The No Ketchup Dinner.

The idea is simple. A few days ahead, everyone notifies the group what item he'll bring. The item must be something that he consumes with ketchup, like hot dogs, fries, hamburgers, fish sticks, tater tots, home fries, omelets, meat-loaf, onion rings, chicken nuggets, etc (I thought there'd be more. What did I miss?)

Then everyone would bring condiments she likes with those items. For example, I like ranch dressing with fries, honey mustard with chicken nuggets, sauerkraut and mustard with hot dogs, or guacamole with hamburgers. And, of course, everyone shares the condiments.

For desert, we could have Ketchup Cake.

The Atrium

I've previously talked about a military base (wikipedia) near my parents' house is closing.

Today, I went to the Portland Press Herald site and saw a story I hadn't expected: Brunswick hotel closing before Navy base does. The Atrium is a hotel near where I grew up, across the street from the base. We used to go there for Chinese food when my grandparents were at their summer cottage.

Over the past 10 years, the hotel has become more run-down and their clientele has become primarily military. Now, the owners can't stay in business.

It's a bellweather of things to come. I'm curious to see what Brunswick will look like after 2011, when the base is officially destaffed.

Misspelled

There are a few words that really bother me when misspelled. For example, I cringe when I see 'definatly'. I must have annoyed a few people before I learned that ridiculous is spelled 'ri' not 're'. The whole it's/its, your/you're, and their/they're/there thing makes my skin crawl when I read the wrong one.

What are the misspellings that make you cringe?

Outsmarted

I tried to get really good tickets to the Dave Matthews Band show at Shoreline Amphitheatre by joining up for the DMB fanclub and buying the tickets in March.

Well, I'm in row S of section 200 (seating chart), which is one of the back seating areas before the grass seating.

Fan club tickets are based on seniority (so I'm a new member, I'll be at the back of the fan clubbers) but I'm guessing some people who bought through TicketMaster will be sitting ahead of me.

I had pretty far back seats in North Carolina and still had a great time, so it should still be a great show. So sometimes, ticket sellers outsmart me!

The first twinge

I smelled the first twinge of autumn in the air this morning, faint but detectible.
In my family, the first hints of autumn always coincide with the first discussions of the ski season.

Ways in which the ski season's ramping up:
* My skiing magazines (Ski and Powder) have started to arrive for the season.
* My family is already talking about a trip to Mammoth Mountain for January.
* I'm thinking about a $399 season pass to Alpine Meadows.
* My oldest sister is coming to town in early December, and we're talking about going skiing.
* I've ordered a Camelbak Scorpion, with a built in insulated tube so the mouthpiece doesn't freeze!
* I've ordered new ski socks, pants, gloves, and a hat. (Hey Carolyn, want your gloves back?)
* Every member of my family has already mentioned the ski season to me!

So I know that ski season is at least 3 months away, but the first scent of fall air reminds me of the snow.

Unlike parents, I mourn the start of the school year

I bike to work on average 2-3 times a week. It's 6 miles, it's safe, I ride in bike lanes for most of the time. All in all, about the perfect ride to work.

Well, today was the start of school in Palo Alto.

I pass by 2 schools on the way to work. I also live in an area where tons of kids bike to school or parents drive the kids in. This makes for lots of fun, as I pass by the schools during peak drop-off time. Bike lanes become temporary parking lanes. Parents cut off bikers to pull into bike lanes, having seen the bikers. It makes my otherwise tranquil ride not so tranquil and a few minutes longer.

So, Palo Alto parents, if your child goes to Addison Elementary School or Duveneck Elementary School, I beseech you, look for bikers!

A veritable crapstorm of Spam

The past few days have seemed to be amazingly bad for Spam. Anyone else seeing this? I'm getting a metric crapload on all my addresses. Sad.

The Stehlik Fund

If you went to the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science and find yourself with some extra money, I encourage you to donate some of that to Mark Stehlik's discretionary spending fund aka the Stehlik Fund.

National parks visited

I never knew some places were national parks, I swore the only national park I'd been to was The Grand Canyon, and I'd driven around Acadia. So, with no further ado, the national parks (and recreation areas, and monuments, whatever is listed at the national parks listing) I've visited.

Acadia
Cape Cod National Seashore
Fire Island National Seashore
Golden Gate Recreation Area/Alcatraz/Presidio of San Francisco/San Francisco Maritime
Grand Canyon
Lake Mead (at least Hoover Dam)
Minute Man National Historical Park
National Mall/Washington Monument
Saguaro National Park (I believe... it's been awhile)
Statue of Liberty
Yosemite

I want to go to Devils Postpile when I'm next in Mammoth. Only problem, it's only open from mid June to mid October.

Bryan!

I'd like to point out my friend Bryan got a post on the Google Blog.

wOOt

Does anyone else think that it's cute that Woot advertises on Adwords for Goog?

Password-storage-busting

Firefox and Internet Explorer store passwords if you want them to. I'm sure other browsers do too, but the big two do.

However, there are times you don't want people auto logged in - sometimes it's unwise. You want to prevent this. (Nevermind that help desk bans password storage like this, that doesn't matter when it's not followed)

So, how do you fix this, with Struts + JSP + JSTL, in a cross platform way?

Let's explore the options:
1. Turn autocomplete off. This is a non-standard (non html-4.01) attribute. Struts doesn't want to pass it through - it's not XHTML. So I can't just do:

<html:form autocomplete="off">

2. Ok, let's try Javascript. Let's say

form.password.value = "";

This legitimately blanks the password field on load - however, when the user's cursor enters the password field, it pulls the password from the browser and automatically enters it for the user.

3. Howabout trying

<input type="password" autocomplete="off">

This is supposed to do the trick. It, upon my testing, does nothing about preventing password storage in Firefox 1.5.

4. Now how about the option I liked the best: Having the following in your jsp:

<jsp:useBean id="now" class="java.util.Date" scope="request"/>
<c:set var="nowInt" value="${now.time}" scope="page"/>
<input type="text" name="username/">
<input type="password" name="password<c:out value="${nowInt}"/>"/>
<input type="hidden" name="salt" value="<c:out value="${nowInt}"/>">

On the backend, you do:

String salt = (String) PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty("salt");
String username = (String) PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty("username");
String password = (String) PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty("password" + salt);

Unfortunately, this doesn't work. strut's config doesn't allow a dynamically named form element name. It works on the frontend, no password is ever stored, across any browser. Close, but not working on the backend.

4a. The final solution works! We use the same frontend from 4, and we ignore Struts to get what we want.

String salt = (String) PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty("salt");
String username = (String) PropertyUtils.getSimpleProperty("username");
String password = (String) request.getProperty("password" + salt);
verify(username, password);

Basically, Struts sometimes is useful. It makes everything we do regular. But sometimes it gets in my way. However, this is the solution I liked in the first place, it just took beating struts into submission.

Krispy Kreme vs Dunkin Donuts

An intern asked me today "What does Dunkin Donuts have that Krispy Kreme doesn't?"

Muffins.
Bagels.
Bagels with meat and cheese.
Better coffee.
And good dounts.

(of course, the best donuts I've ever had come from Frosty's Donuts in Brunswick, Maine)

[Previously...]

Can any of you get past 21?

This puzzle is fun.

Blogroll

I've made some additions on my blogroll/siteroll. With no further ado, I've added:

Cute Overload, pictures of cute animals.
Burbed, a blog about ridiculous housing prices
Bill Monk, a site for tracking shared bills among friends

Enjoy!

A good UI

I was in Helen's car (a 2002 Prius) the other day and we used the GPS to get from one place to another.

The UI for entering the destination address was pretty awesome! When you push letters, letters that couldn't happen after disappear. So if I type 'S-o-u', every letter but 't' dims. Ok, so clever use of a trie. But they filled the trie with the street names in the US - so once I type in 's-o-u-t-h-b-r', very few letters are up - it's not trying to build a compound word, but it really only looks at legit street names.

Once you enter the street name, they show you only cities that have streets of that name in the state (I forget how one chooses another state).

I have to say, they could have put a pretty bad UI in the system - one where you enter every little detail - but they seemed to take the extra step and make it that much better. (My only complaint: they do an ABCDEF keyboard instead of QWERTY)

I'm glad I never played with this system before I bought my new car. Otherwise I might have tried to hold out for a GPS system!

Keep Them Afraid!

Homeland Security Advisory System level history:

Although the system in theory consists of five levels, the threat level has never been lowered to blue or green, nor elevated to red. The threat level has stood at yellow for most of its existence. (source)

Yep, it's stayed at Yellow or Orange since its inception at March of 2002. This seems fishy to me...

Biking isn't that slow

Between stop lights and taking back roads to work, my driving commute in is 13 minutes, starting car to parking. (I could take 101, but having to come to a complete stop on an onramp makes my commute much less happy).

My biking commute is 30 minutes, getting on the bike to getting off the bike.

Biking isn't that much slower than driving! I'd never timed it before, but this is surprising - it's only twice as much time to bike!

DMV

I have complained about the DMV before. I'm going to do it again.

I moved to the area in January, and in April I decided that it was time to get a California license and California registration. At the time, you had to make a separate appointment for each, or risk waiting in line for 2 hours. I made two appointments, and went to the DMV twice (during work hours no less). That went relatively smoothly.

Now, I bought a car. The guy selling it doesn't have a copy of the title, so we fill out a title-less transfer form. I then go to the DMV, and they say we need a bill of sale too. They say that's all I need.

So I meet the guy this weekend for that signature. Again, I go back to the DMV during work hours. The DMV then says "Oh, California has never had the title for that - Montana must have it. Sorry we didn't tell you this last time! You can't use that form, you really need the title or a copy of it!"

I'm tired of the DMV.

Goodbye, Myspace

Goodbye, Myspace. The amount of people I don't know asking to friend me, the number of invitations to events I have no interest in going to, etc was way too much.

Basically: your level of abuse is too high, and the signal to noise is really bad. I'll stick to Facebook.

Baby blogs

Let's face it, baby blogs are the new black. Actually, babies are the new black. It's summer in the valley, and I see many, many babies. Also, I see many pregnant women.

Many of my coworkers' wives have recently had children. Most of my breeding coworkers have baby blogs. They're very trendy!

Taxes and the DMV

The taxes on my new car cost more than the purchase price of the Thunderbird (in 2001), by about $8.

There's something about the way the DMV employees seem to treat me as meat and don't really show joy and are kind of brisk that makes me extremely nervous there.

Bill Monk @ Google

BillMonk came to Google last Friday and gave a great talk.

Who is that handsome devil introducing them?!

Try out BillMonk. It's fantastic if you ever go out with friends and split bills, or live with someone and pay utilities!

Google News in Arabic

I'm really glad that Google is launching Arabic services lately:
Google News Arabic
Gmail Arabic
Google Translate (English <-> Arabic)

I'm sad it has taken this long to do, but part of the problem with Arabic is most programmers design pages right to left, not start to finish!

Saving money on your car insurance

I pay $164.46 per 6 months on my Thunderbird
I get a discount of $117.42 per 6 months on my Audi because I have the Thunderbird.

Yes, it makes me greatly sad that when I remove the Thunderbird, I'll save $50 every 6 months.

Anyone want to buy a used Thunderbird?

New car details!

I test drove a car from Craigslist the other day. If you're interested here's the listing.

Details:
Audi A4 Avant (wagon)
Engine: 1.8 Liter Turbo
Transmission: 5 speed manual
Year: 2002
Color: Silver with a tinge of blue
Quattro (All-wheel drive)
37,500 miles
Moon roof
Climate control

Things it has in common with the Thunderbird:
* Leather
* Moon roof
* Manual transmission
* Pressure intake (supercharger/turbocharger)

Things the Audi doesn't have in common with the Thunderbird:
* It gets 25 miles per gallon
* It will make it up to Lake Tahoe if it snows
* It works!

Jim is already trolling for rides to Ikea... hrm...

I bought a car!

Sometimes, it's just time to give it up and buy a new (used) car.

And I have.

Details to follow...

Burbed

Burbed, the Bay Area Home Price and Mortgage Insanity Blog. Interesting read, $600k for 827 sq feet in a merely OK city. WTF, mate?

Gay Marriage ban vote

List of US Senators' votes for gay marriage ban

I suggest contacting your senators and either thank them for voting against the gay marriage ban, or harangue them for voting for the gay marriage ban.

I thanked Maine's Republican Senators for breaking party lines and said how impressed I am.

I'm a romantic

Is it strange I tried to explain something completely non technical to my girlfriend today by talking about L1 and L2 cache?