That’s A Really Really Long Time
So I swung by a video game store during lunch today, and I see this kid in there not talking, not acknowledging anyone, playing his Nintendo DS, while his Dad was buying him a video game. The kid’s like 8 or something. Walks out, doesn’t look up.
Anyway, after he leaves, I joke with the clerk “wow, playing video games and can’t even pay attention to the video game store”.
Clerk responds “That’s a Hooosoowhoooshy, they only come out every one million years, he’s got to catch it”. (I gather that’s something like a Magic Morphing Pokemon Turtle or something).
I respond “A million years? That’s a really long time to be playing a video game”.
Clerk doesn’t quite get it.
Application To Magnum
Short photo walk today.
Here’s my gritty approach to War Journalism, as applied to the Traffic Cone Genre:
You may also like such highly exciting works as: Un Zona De Protection Para Arboles, Random Sidewalk Markings, My Favorite Neighborhood Fire Hydrant, and Some Not Quite So Well Painted Lane Markings.
Or you might not.
Blood Types, Feedback Loops, and Social Networks
So I have twitter updating facebook and buzz. My blog updates my twitter, which updates my facebook and buzz transitively. My tripit updates my facebook and linkedin (and my calendar), which I update only by using orbitz. I could have twitter update linkedin, but I said no. Zenfolio updates buzz, but only buzz (I’m confused) … I stopped using Flickr. I mostly only feed content into twitter or my blog, except rarely I post things about my secret death ray I am building in my basement only on facebook.
If I post to my blog, my blog posts to my twitter that I’ve updated by blog, and it shows up on my blog that I’ve twittered about all of that (self reference warning!). It’s all rather crazy, and I imagine I use less of these things than many people (my PS3 is not connected to the tweetosphere, for instance). Currently if I post a blog entry, someone may comment on it on facebook, and someone may “like” a tweet on buzz. Thus commenters are isolated, often having no perception of the isolation. Metadata is also lost in translation and there’s often no way to know the original source of the content.
The analogy of blood types also seems to apply. Facebook is A+, a universal receptor, but is not a very good donor. Flickr is more of a universal donor, but can’t accept input very well. Twitter does both well, but not at a very high level of data. The idea of interacting with eleventy billion different websites and not being able to visualize this graph is conceptually interesting and patent worthy. And I’m a Computer Science guy who specializes in the meta problem of software that manages other software. Imagine the problem if you’re into some other humanities subject, like, say, Underwater Basketweaving or Necromancy. Or, say, if you double majored in both. Problems.
I’m also wondering how close we are to getting a few possible social network feedback loops set up, where one network updates another network saying it just updated itself on the same network (ad nauseum), and possible photocopier degradation in that signal due to metadata loss that makes it hard to detect the events were uncorrelated. It seems like it’s probably possible today, and probably not all sites are insulated against this.
I am also waiting for the day when Twitter can communicate with Buzz over Farmville protocol.
Clearly, the answer has to be a really big standards committee. I’m sure of it. Or perhaps a Philosophy Thesis.
Photos From Manhattan
A business trip to visit several Puppet users and the nylug in New York gave me some time Monday to walk around Manhattan, which I’d never been to before. A great city, no doubt. Nice restaurants, architecture, and amazingly like TV. I had a great time talking with everyone (as well as seeing the city), and I’ll definitely be back.
Click through the above to see a few photos, the first several from Rockefeller Center. I only had the Panasonic with me… I really could have used the SLR.
Traffic Cone Destination Tourism
A trip to San Francisco to sit on our Puppet Training class gave me an opportunity to visit a place I had long known about on Flickr… the San Francisco Airport BART Station. If you’re into traffic cone photography, you’re already in on it, I’m sure.
Puppet training was remarkably informative … not only watching Teyo teach about exported resources, storeconfigs, and custom functions/facts (and seeing Bruce plow through creation of new Puppet types in Ruby), but I also had the chance to talk to numerous happy users about future things we can do with Puppet. Amusingly, I ran into quite a few Cobbler users too, which definitely helps as an icebreaker. It was very nice meeting and talking with everyone.
Airplane landed a little late so I didn’t get to see the Golden Gate, but maybe next time. A day later and I could have seen the Maverick surfing competition. (John McCain should announce. It would be hilarious.)
Joining Reductive Labs
As this thread indicates, I am very glad to announce I’ve joined Reductive Labs as their new Product Manager.
As most folks on Fedora Planet know, killer OSS communities and taking over the computer world with intelligent software are some of my favorite things. Puppet excels at both of these, and Reductive Labs is full of amazing people. I simply cannot think of any better place to be right now. The present state of things with Puppet is great, and there are lots of places it can go.
It is also great to be seeing many of the same nics on the lists and IRC again, and I plan to be running into a lot more of you at conferences as well. If anyone wants to talk shop about their Puppet usage or management challenges, I’ll always be up for it. I’m mpdehaan on #puppet and michael@reductivelabs.com over email.
x.org configuration for Dell 24″ Ultrasharp + Ubuntu 9.10
In case this proves useful, the following works for me:
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "DontZap" "false"
EndSection
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Monitor "DELL U2410"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Virtual 3200 2000
Modes "1900x1200" "1600x1200" "1280x1024" "1152x864" "1024x768" "800x600" "720x400" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Section "Module"
Load "glx"
EndSection
Section "Device"
Identifier "Default Device"
Driver "fglrx"
EndSection
It seems like the proprietary driver (and not using the built-in Intel card) is necessary on my laptop. However, go-go-gadget Display Port.
Shine On You Crazy Tunnel
Last time through O’Hare, I failed to find the shiny blinky concourse that seems to be the airport photo meme of the decade (at least on Flickr). Found it this time. It is in the tunnel between concourse B&C.
The Frogger
Ground Kontrol has an excellent collection including the vector graphics Star Wars (wow, first time seeing one of these, fantastic), Asteroids, Missile Command, Frogger, Turbo Ms. Pacman, Galaga, Discs of Tron (my personal favorite), and some “newer” stuff I remember feeding many quarters into when I was growing up — Sunset Riders, X-Men, etc. Missed some of my racing/driving favorites like Pole Position, Bump N Jump, Stun Runner, Spy Hunter, Out Run, etc. They did have a most excellent selection of pinball tables, more than I’ve seen in one place, even “back in the day”. Pinball tables eat quarters FAST. Did I mention they have beer (and special holders for them?).
