January 02, 2008
Resolve 2008
Yeah yeah. I've had at best mixed results with NYE resolutions, but I like to keep posting them to keep me in check.
-Expand my DC friend set
-Network more with local DC ICT/development types
-Write more blog entries at my professional blog
-Write at least one entry a month at OLPCNews and get the OLPCLearningClub wiki off the ground
-Fish my resume around and hopefully find an international development centric position (that pays)
-Move further and further away from Microsoft; set up virtualization or good emulation for when I need XP-only programs, find viable alternatives to as much as possible
-Continue going to the gym regularly, as I get closer to my target weight shift more and more to strength and endurance training
-Get back into dancing (so rusty!) and even take some classes
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June 04, 2007
Serious Research
Finally, a
a game theoretic analysis of leaving the toilet seat down:
In this paper, we internalize the cost of yelling and model the conflict as a non-cooperative game between two species, males and females.We find that the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down is inefficient. However, to our dismay, we also find that the social norm of always leaving the toilet seat down after use is not only a Nash equilibrium in pure strategies but is also trembling-hand perfect. So, we can complain all we like, but this norm is not likely to go away.All hope is not lost though. An important issue regarding social norms is whether they are created to increase welfare. Are they society’s response to market failures? One such norm is tipping for service quality. Azar (2003) has shown that the norm of tipping increases social welfare. In this paper, we show conclusively that the social norm of leaving the toilet seat down after use decreases welfare and by doing that we hope to convince the reader that social norms are not always welfare enhancing. Hence, there is a case for scientifically examining social norms and educating the masses about the fallacy of following social norms blindly.
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May 31, 2007
Tastes
Watching this video, which morphs between 500 years of female portraits (go, watch it now) reminded me of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty ad, revealing the work going in to presenting a fashion model - including photoshopping at the end.
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May 29, 2007
Weekend
I didn't actually do that much, but I got a lot done. If that makes sense. I cleaned out a good chunk of our basement, in hopes that we can continue straightening it up and make a living space out of it (since it stays cool during the summer!)
A and I had bought some yummy apple wine[1] from Chateau O'Brien, and wanted to drink it before she disappears for the summer to China, so we planned an entire meal around it - Salmon with sliced apples marinated in an OJ/apple juice/mint mixture with nuts and brown sugar sprinkled on top, apple and fig chutney, basmati rice and mushrooms saute'ed in white wine. It was an apple-y but awesome meal.
[1] Yeah, yeah. I don't like "dessert wines" either - but this stuff is good.
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January 24, 2007
xkcd on wikipedia
This is only a problem if you can't justify it as "research:"
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January 21, 2007
NYC? Get a bus.
So, I finally (with A's prodding) got to NYC. Some of her MIT friends were gathering for the weekend, and I have a brother and many Plan II folk there as well who I've been promising to meet for a while now. We took a bus up (http://www.washny.com/ - $35 r/t!) and dropped our bags off at a friend of A's office, and walked down to Battery Park from Times Square, stopping to admire the Empire State Building, a few street markets, parks, the Statue of Liberty (from afar) and "ground zero."
We met up with the rest of A's friends and hiked it out to Greenwich village to go to Lederhosen, a German beer garden with insanely excellent waitstaff. After tiring outselves out there, we retired to Brooklyn to pass out.
Saturday, we woke up to a light blanket of snow (the first for the season up in these parts!) and walked down to where A's mother and grandparents grew up in a more southerly part of Brooklyn, and then had dim sum for lunch, meeting up with one of my closest P2 buds, C., and wandered Chinatown a bit more, then headed to the Met and Café Sabarsky for coffee. We taxi'd across the park (it was COOOOLD by then!) to meet up with my brother Ev at Calle Ocho, a very hip Cuban place (yum!). We met back up with C. at a housewarming party thrown by yet another P2 friend in NYC, where a few other P2ers were in attendance. We eventually wandered back to Brooklyn and failed to go out with A's friends to Brooklyn bars as we had to get up early Sunday to make the best bus back.
NYC is... a bit weird. Too much city, but some interesting adaptations by its residents to living with so many people.
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January 17, 2007
Resignation
Resignation
So, I gave notice at $dcjob[0] today, as an old Peace Corps buddy encouraged me to apply for his previous position, where I will start next month.
It was hard, as my co-workers are awesome folk, and I'm leaving them at a critical time before two big events (to be fair, I can't think of any point in the last year or so where it wouldn't have been a "critical point" -- one of the reasons I was encouraged to follow this other opportunity. In the informal exit interview, the ED even mentioned that she'd noticed my lack of engagement of recent, due in large part to the high stress levels at work.
I do think that long-term it will be bitter but good medicine for the organization. It is at a point now that a full-time IT person, or the effective equivalent, is sorely needed; I've been running at full capacity for months now just to keep things at a bare minimum of operations. I try to be rather humble, but with this style of IT work, I am highly skilled -- if I can just barely keep things going at part-time, it's a sign that it's easily a full time position.
I was reminded of my favorite positive psychologist's introduction (to me) of the concept of "flow" where you are right on the threshold between overwhelming and (too hard and not enough time) and boring (too much time and too easy). My old position moved into the overwhelming area and has been there for far too long, and I haven't enjoyed that perfect balance of challenge and personal growth to reach that challenge due to the time constraints, and it is that more than anything else that's worn on me. I hope that my next job will provide more opportunities for that. At the very least, it provides a substantially better compensation package and almost 2/3 less of a commute.
I feel bad leaving, but if it causes them to change to a full time position, then it will be for the best.
So, let's do a quick catch-up from a more positive light on life - I'm starting my last semester in grad school, taking a full load of courses, one at Georgetown which promises to be more work than I'd like, and taught from a Bank-positive techno-positivist position (I love tech, but am a pragmatist and a cynic too - I want to see it work before I suggest someone go into debt for it). I'm also taking our capstone course, which is basically a team-project course where each group runs a class and we all have a big presentation at the end. The last is another IT policy course, focused a bit more on security and privacy issues. I still need to complete my independent study from last semester, which is mostly justa case of sitting down to do it, it's pretty close.
I haven't had time (really?) to write much for OLPCNews of recent, though I did put up another post on cost estimates, this time referencing the incredibly detailed spreadsheet than an OLPC supporter in Brazil (who I got to talk to through the power of Google Spreadsheets + Chat (with some help from Google Translate too). I hope to get back to some more posts there, especially if I can tie them in to my Tech+Dev course.
Last weekend my girlfriend took me to this fantastic bed and breakfast in West Virginia for my (early) birthday present. WV is... well, let's say it reminded me of the more underdeveloped parts of East Texas, but the owners are South Africans who are huge conservationists and have been buying up as much land as they can to make a black bear reserve with conjoined to their B+B land. We saw a huge herd of deer (~20) and 2 black bears, one of which was just hanging out less than 10 feet away.
This coming weekend I hope to get away to NYC, as it's my last "open" weekend before school really gets nasty, and then the weekend after that will be my huge bday party. If you're interested in coming and for whatever reason weren't on my evite list (most likely, you're not in DC), post here and I'll add you.
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January 01, 2007
That was the 2007 it was
2006 had its ups and downs. 2007 was overall a decent year.
January finally got me up to NYC to visit some good college friends, some of A's college friends, and my eldest brother. It was fun, and I intend to head back there on occasion. January also found me switching jobs. I like my new job, and it's a great change in pace and stress from my previous job. It's not my career yet, but it's a good job to pay loans back with and look for a career-track job. I also turned 30.
In February I discovered the secret to Ararat's Drinker's Choice dip. Between that, school, and the new job, it was otherwise a pretty uneventful month, but I did buy a new-to-me laptop for Linux to replace my dot-com-vintage one that was falling apart quickly. I'm posting with it now with lots of eye-candy.
In March pretty much everything at the new job melted down, which sucked. Add on to that some friction with our tech support company and lots of workywork for school and it was a poor month overall.
April had me presenting (badly) at the STGlobal conference at the AAAS and going into high gear finishing up papers and independent study projects.
May got me all gradumicated from GWU. My parents came and we protested the white house and went wine tasting, so that was good.
June transitioned me into fulltime at the new job, and Audrey headed off for Japan and China for the summer. I joined a gym and enjoyed the many fruits of my labor on my summer garden, getting more tomatoes than I could have possibly hoped for, plus squash, potatoes, habaneros, cucumber, and spices. I'm totally doubling that garden this year. July was more of the same: gym, garden, cook, work, complain about our government, sleep, repeat.
August found me in a shouting match with my student loan company and their poor at best business practices. A got back from China (finally!!!)
September took A and I to India (she had a conference, I had vacation time to burn). India's a fascinating country, but man, not a relaxing place to travel. In case you missed my pimping of all the photos we took, they're still all at Flickr.
October saw another throw-down party from the NutHouse which was Life Aquatic themed and so badass we made a video of it.
In November I blacked out from hot sauce and also went to Nicaragua for Chana's wedding, and that's pretty much that. We had a tiny thanksgiving here in DC too.
December took me to San Diego for our annual conference, where I had a good presentation on web 2.0 and open source, which spurred a flurry of posts on another blog to create a basic how-to-web-2.0 guide for non-profits. A and I went to Angelo for xmas, and had a nice relaxing time there.
Overall, a LOT of traveling, which began to wear thin at the end there. I'm totally out of vacation days currently, tho, so I'll prolly stick around for a bit. It was a decent year, and I'm glad to be done with school and generally enjoying life.
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December 25, 2006
Resolution tracking
Last year:
--Grad School AND THE FUTURE: Over the course of the next year, I need to narrow down my focus and start sniffing out realistic and enjoyable job opportunities.--Activism: Also, focus down on a few topics/causes for real activism. Give the ACLU and EFF some money, and make this more of a priority than it has been. Of course, continue occasional blog/rants filtering through BBC, DailyKOS and similar.
--DC: If I stick with international dev, DC will probably be a decently important city in my life, so I need to make peace with it and find more things about it that I really and truly like.
--Travel: I also want to get out of the country again, I've been gettin itchy. There are still-nebulous plans to head down to Nica this summer, and I need to work with my job and find a travel grant or two to get that to work out.
--Keep in better contact: a LOT of people have kinda fallen off my radar. Basically everyone not on LJ or IM... I need to be a bit better about staying in touch.
--Fitness: The last month of finals and projects and cold and thanksgiving really didn't do much good for me. I've been good about staying active in DC and walking a lot, but I need to work on eating less and maybe getting some non-walking exercise in.
Grad School and FUTURE - some limited progress on future. Still mostly a process of elimination, a few leads. I've made some peace with DC - living in Granola Park has helped, and finding a few gems of DC life on my own have also helped. I still haven't made it to any good protests, but gave the EFF some cash and tried to give the ACLU some, too, but their credit card system was b0rken, and I never got around to it.
As for travel, I made it out to Cali in May for a wedding and Nica in August for 2 great weeks of hard work and great exploration. That scratched the travel itch enough for... well, not very long, really.
I kept in some decent contact. but that faded out as I got buried in books during the semester(s). Caught up with lots of Peace Corps folk at the May wedding.
Fitness came and went. I used the weight bench we had in my old place on occasion, but didn't really do great. I recovered from last T'giving/xmas, but then the spring semester really dragged on me. Summer was good and this fall I've been reasonably active, too. Having more control over my kitchen has led to better eating habits and grocery lists, and my new neighborhood is much more walkable, all of which help.
So all in all I did OK on last year. Partially because I set reasonable goals :) All the more reason to keep that up. Y2k7 resolutions coming soon!
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November 25, 2006
Thanksgiven
I feel that my house's Orhpan's Thanksgiving went excellently. Three days effectively lost to prep, eating, and unwinding; but we sat down 16 people at our table and sent everyone home with leftovers. We demolished 18 lbs of turkey and 16 of ham, two types of dressing/stuffing, corn casserole, corn, broccoli, salad, two types of rolls, cranberry sauce, cranberry salad, sliced canned cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, two types of gravy, some rice casserole, and of course a green been casserole.
Oh, right, and 8 pies. We had a few latecomers so fed ~20-22 people in total.
The really sad part is that we ran out of turkey by the end, except for some gristly dark meat... so went out Friday and bought another turkey to roast to go with the remaining side dishes. :D
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November 07, 2006
DC Taxi Zones
One of the most confusing parts of DC is dealing with the Taxi Zone system; as the one map that seems to be available is grainy and poorly made, only showing the "zone boundaries" and not landmarks, non-boundary streets, or things like that. It feels like an attempt to maintain an information advantage over the consumers (especially the tourists) and extract that extra fare from dropping you off on the side of the street that's the next zone out and sillyness like that.
If you know how to work and abuse the zone system, walking that extra 1/2-block on either side of your journey can save you a sawbuck. To help with this, I've plonked the grainy, fuzzy map of the DC Taxi Zones on top of Google Earth, so you can actually see where things are.
DCTaxiZones.kmz (1.6MB, requires Google Earth)
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October 23, 2006
Small Pleasures
On Mondays, I work until 5 and then commute up to GWU for class from 7-9, then walk and rail home and get there around 10pm. I make up for this long stretch of no food by going to a little Cuban restaurant next door to my work and getting (among other things) deep-fried plantains to dip in their mysterious mayonaise-mustardish sauce. YUM
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October 22, 2006
Haloween Party
The Halloween party was a huge success. I DJ'ed using my linux box (but without relying on a wirelessly-mounted SMB share this time, which, though awesome, doesn't work if there's any other network traffic in my situation). I've created a set of perl programs that make it easy to export playlists of songs into folders with playlists and the songs themselves, and a way to change a playlist from Windows to Unix directory formats, and even remap from windows' C:\... to my mountpoint for that. woot.
Huh. I seem to remember having to change the nixification script last night, while drunk. It worked, but now I can't even remember the problem I was solving, much less what I did. I should go back and look at that code before the next time it gets used, perchance. Drunk coding != idea.good;
There are a few photos up on flickr, hopefully more will show up from the roomies.
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August 23, 2006
More Nica Photos
More photos are up from Nicaragua at flickr
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August 21, 2006
Campo
Let me break into this sum-up of my campo trip by saying that Jamaican transit, for all its foibles, may in fact be better than the cross-country chicken-buses of Nicaragua. Also, for all the bad press this old form of development project gets, hey, someone build some paved roads down here, OK? Aside from the Panamerican highway and parts of Managua, it's all Somozo-bricked roads [1] at best, dirt in general. That being said, fun bus travel games to play include "Which Box Has the Chickens?" and "How Many People Can Really Fit?"
Our first stop was...well, actually at the Managua northbound bus station. We missed the last bus to Esteli, so instead spent the night at a ... well, crappy hotel. Such is life. We got up at the ass-crack of dawn and caught an early bus on to Esteli, where the museum we were trying to go to (of martyrs of the war, put together by their mothers) was closed. We ate breakfast in town and then an early light lunch at La Casita, which is an awesome organic garden place run by a former development worker who's now "living by example." It's a very tranquilo place, with double-ventilated composting pit latrines (that's in there for the water san volunteer(s) reading this).
So early afternoon, we caught a PACKED bus up to San Juan de Limay - it turns out it was the last bus of the day, and students from the region take it home after their saturday classes. I stood for most of the way up to Limay, in an old schoolbus packed 3 adults to a seat on both sides and two thick down the center aisle.
San Juan de Limay
In San Juan de Limay, a town that Chanita assured me is a metropolis, the primary mode of intra-city transit is by foot, with horses being a close second. It's a super tranquilo town, with a few tiny general stores, a bar/restaurant, and a hospedaje(guest house)/bar/restaurant - Mi Rancho - where we stayed. and, uh, that's it. no cybercafes, no nothin' else.The owner of Mi Rancho was leaving early the next morning (it turns out, to go to Managua as a candidate for his area on the PLC / conservative party), so we had to get out of the hospedaje at an ass-early hour. So we dropped our packs off at the house of this cute abuelita we'd talked to the day before (who it turns out was our host's aunt -- small towns for ya). We were strolling around town, waiting for the (other) restaurant to open, and were invited to walk with Marta, who was going out to her parcel of land to check on the wells and for her children to swim/bathe in the river. We ended up spending most of the morning walking around with her, learning how her family made mud bricks to sell in town (manually), her husband is working in Barquismetro, Venezuela, and we got to see their garden where they grow most of the food they eat. We got back into town, had breakfast (and coffee finally!) and went to visit one of the EeA artisans, Ramon, who is a stonecarver. He works mostly in marmolina, but is moving to marmol (I think that's soapstone, and marble, respectively - I need to figure this out tho). He showed me how he carves the stone, and gifted me a new carving at the end of our visit. It's amazing to see how much he has been able to accomplish thanks to being able to sell his sculptures at a fair price. He's rebuilt his home (with brick instead of unfinished wooden planks), to begin with.
We then walked down to another nearby community, Rio Abajo, where there is a cooperative of potters who use local clay and seed dyes to color their pots. They have one spinning wheel (manual/kick wheel) and turn out some amazing pieces.
Somoto
That afternoon we took a bus back through to Esteli, then out to Somoto, a town further up in the mountains, and the capital of the poorest state in Nica (Nica is the 2nd poorest country in the Western hemisphere, behind Haiti). It's an... odd place. It reminded me of Merida slightly (tho much much smaller). There's a humongous presence of aid/development workers in the town, so the town has adapted to cater to their tastes. There are cyber cafes and fancy restaurants (and pizza even!) With any luck, they will be able to broaden their focus and become their own tourist destination (they're close to the Honduran border, and on the panam highway), so as to not become a ghosttown if the dev community moves on.We hiked up to another artisan's house, Christian, who at somewhere around 19 is his family's prime breadwinner through his painting. He has never finished school not even taken an art class, but is an obviously skilled painter. Another example of the impressive power of sustained, well-developed fair trade / economic justice work - not only is he able to support his family, his sick brother, but he also rebuilt his house with stone bricks (and bought himself a bike). Just as a tip of the hat to the hardcoreness of his entire family, his father is a carpenter, and I saw him sketching out marks on a piece of wood to cut. His straightedge? The disassembled barrel of a rifle. Probably, his own rifle from the 80s. Swords to plowshares.
There's probably a whole lot more that I'm leaving out. I'll try to add some detailed mini-stories as they come back to me, and photos will be appearing on flickr soon.
[1] The Somozo family ran Nica as a dictatorship for over 40 years, and repaved most of the paved roads with bricks manufactured in their family's factories.
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August 17, 2006
fotos!
A few fotos from thus far:
http://flickr.com/photos/griffjon/tags/nicaragua/
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August 13, 2006
The Monkey Hut
Despite my GWU frustrations, I had a WONDERFUL and TRANQUILO weekend at Laguna de Apoyo between Granada and Masaya. It's an old mostly-dormant volcano with a lake in the crater (very minor thermal activity). The water is slightly salty, but super-clear and blue. I got to kayak, tube, swim, dive, hike, chat and relax all weekend. Chana has some photos on her flickr account here: http://flickr.com/photos/oklanica/sets/774400/ , I'll upload my own Monkey Hut/Apoyo photos when I return or take the time to download from my camera.
Even better is the fact that the resort is run on the honor system. There's a snack counter, a soft-drink fridge and a beer fridge. You take a beer, and make a note on your check. There are canoes/kayaks/tubes[1], you take them out on the water (free/included in being there for the day). There's a coffee maker and coffee, it's free, just make it. There's a full kitchen for general use, just clean up after yourself. They recommend a local grocery (pulperia) and local restaurants nearby, if you don't want to buy their snacks. Their beer, when you sum it up and pay your bill, turns out to be expensive -- it's almost a dollar US per beer. If I ever own a resort hotel, I will run it this way.
http://www.thebeardedmonkey.com/monkeyhut.htm
Next weekend we're going through here (http://flickr.com/photos/oklanica/sets/813101/) on our campo trip.
[1] Real inner tubes, with the tire-inflation knob sticking out!
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July 18, 2006
General updates
I'm really loving my new living situation -- despite it's many, many flaws, overall it gives me a lot more personal freedom (BTW - this is a general open invitation to crash at my place in DC now). And the porch! Woooooo porch! It's great to sit on it and watch the fireflies in the yard, or the occasional summer storm roll down.
Work has been really difficult the past few weeks. I'm caught between an impending workshop and the contractor putting the registration system together, and am reminded why I hate managing people, as they so rarely live up to my expectations, at least in business situations. In social situations, they generally surpass my wildest dreams and make me feel inadequate, but that's an entirely different story. But even on that thread, I've been doing better of recent.
Despite some rocky/stressy times at work and in life, I've been overall in a good mood. I watched The Day the Earth Stood Still at Screen on the Green with some other grad students last night (the origination of "klatu barata nictu"!!) and have somehow found myself busier than when I was in school. Generally, this is a good thing, tho.
I've read a collection of Mieville short stories (Looking for Jake), and Freakonomics. I'm currently reading The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' misadventures in the tropics, which, as
"... many readers have asked if my statement in the original prologue that “my employer ... the World Bank ... encourages gadflies like me to exercise intellectual freedom” was really accurate. Well almost. It should be modified to “the World Bank ... encourages gadflies like me to find another job."
I was underimpressed by Freakonomics. Sure, some interesting points, but it read more like the string of smaller articles and publications it grew out of than any cohesive idea. To be fair, the authors stated that this was the case many times, but still. It left me unfulfilled.
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July 06, 2006
Cautiously Optimistic
I hate to break the general pattern of malaise of my blog of recent, but I ... I might be kinda happy right now. I'm done with school until August, getting moved in to my new place, and ... dunno, just a bit more cheerful.
But in the tradition of personal blogs, let's over-analyze! whee!!!
*I enjoyed the summer course, but it's nice to not be constantly be nose-in-book or writing, or worrying about those things. I'm reading for pleasure. It's nice. Next semester should be OK, as one course is an independent study, so it'll be a bit more structured towards exactly what I want, and I'm slowly figuring that want part out.
*My new house is interesting. Lots to keep me busy with, and good roommates interested in a communal situation, where we do home-improvement projects together and such. It's a beautiful old (late 1800s) house, with some definite problems, but it has a great vibe.
*Takoma is a great neighborhood. People are out and about walking dogs and kids, all the homes are turn-of-the-century with big yards and trees and anti-war protest signs in the windows. There are restaurants and coffee shops and vintage clothing stores and a big farmers market on Sunday. There's a food co-op and a Safeway both within an easy walk. I'm <5 minutes from the metro, and there are bus lines straight to Adams-Morgan.
*E and JP came down for the weekend of the 4th. Tho I was a bit frazzed with the move and grad-crowd plans, I got to spend some quality times with them, which always has a centering effect, reminding me that balance is within reach!
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June 26, 2006
Rain, rain, come again
The first half of the story from last night (before wading through the 4' of water by the metro station), was that I'd gone down to the Kennedy Center for a free performance by and then documentary on The Refugee All-Stars. It was thundering and lightning downtown when I left, and I decided to walk... to Farragut North station (not really that far of a walk, outside of torrential downpour situations). It decided to pour like a goddamned mofo, but it was a perfect temperature, the rain was wonderful, and the lightning show was spectactular (for DC).
I was a bit of a spectacle on the metro. Everyone stared at me when I sloshed through the door. I informed them that it was still raining outside. I wonder if they noticed the folded-up umbrella sticking out of my pocket?
After getting to my home metro station, I found that I had to wade through hip-deep kinda-scary-looking, rushing, manhole-cover-loosing, muddy water to get home. It probably wasn't the smartest thing I've done this month, but I don't think it wins the dumbest-thing-I've-done-this-year award.
Regardless, my current moleskine notepad has finally had its baptism, but I fear my cell phone will never quite work right again. :|
(...It was worth it.)
(my pants from that night remain outside. This is, generally speaking, still one of the least interesting ways your pants can end up soaking wet and draped over the railing on one's front porch)
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June 15, 2006
It's worse than we thought
So, I've been using CVS for this summer class to keep all my reading, presentation slides from the prof, articles for my paper, and writings themselves, in sync across my home laptop, my travelling Linux laptop, and my thumbdrive (and my work computer at times, and a private directory on my website).
Though it comes with some annoyances when handling big annoying docs in directory structures and not plain text files, it's made my life a lot simpler (no more counting files in a directory, sorting by most-recently-modified, etc.)
So yeah, I'm working on my paper at the GTown building (the roof has a great view of the potomac, electrical outlets and open wireless!), and I just raised my arms and shouted towards the Potomac "I LOVE CVS!"
I especially love the automatic version numbers. I am on rev 1.2 of my paper. It gives me a sense of accomplishment.
I think this qualifies me for dorkiness, beyond geekiness.
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June 13, 2006
House Hunting
I looked at two places Sunday, one is in an excellent location near Eastern Market/Capitol Hill (10 minute walk from the Red line at Union Station, and the Orange and Blue lines at Eastern Market!), for cheap! It's a tiny room in a large rowhouse, with some good common areas, full of non-profit save-the-world types. They had a house outing to the Darfur rally, so I feel I'd fit in well there. And it's cheap. But tiny.
The other place is way out in Takoma Park, about 10-15 more minutes of metro riding, but closer to the metro station than my current place. This also means no walking home at all, and no cheap taxis home late, which kinda sucks. BUT, the HOUSE IS HUGE. It has a wrap-around porch over the front and side, enclosed in the back. It has a humongous basement (with a DJ booth installed) and a ginormous backyard. The inside is quirky and rough around the edges. It had its radiators ripped out and is now all central heat/AC (that's not happy). There are literally 5 bathrooms on the ground floor, 2 (1 private to a room) on the second, and sadly none on the 3rd floor where I'd most likely be (converted attic).
I'm waiting to hear back from the E.Mkt place first, as it's cheaper and more metro-convenient; but if it falls through, I'm jumping on the TkPk place.
House hunting is a really bizarre thing in DC, as there's such a constant flow of people coming, leaving and moving around based on work changes and DC in general. For the shared-house crowd, of course, it's generally self-selecting for non-profit types and grad students, so the open houses are almost always impromptu parties and networking events. At the E. Mkt place, one of the housemates is ivankara's girlfriend (I know him through the PCV IT crowd, her set up pcvs.org from Mauritania where he served) (and they evidentially met through house hunting themselves!), at a place a few weeks back I ran into a current roommate of a friend who'd changed jobs, and a girl who was thinking of volunteering in Jamaica with the Jam. Assoc for the Deaf, who I worked with a bit on IT.
Anyhow, I should be reading, outlining, doing laundry and beginning to box some stuff up, not blogging.
Posted by griffjon at 11:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 03, 2006
Sportz
I think I care less about sports than pretty much everyone I know.
Why do I care whether Team A beats Team B, and their left-ball-hanging-lower-ratio is higher, but not when they play on tuesdays or after playing in cold climates? Honestly.
Posted by griffjon at 10:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 02, 2006
To Have Done List
Things I did this weekend:
*Went salsa-dancing
*Went hiking
*Hosed down my overcoat
*Met up with ISTPers for dinner, Cherry Blossom Festival fireworks, and a party
*Troubleshot Mom's email problem over VNC
*Researched CAFTA/IPR issues for my trade paper
*Found some courses to take next Fall
*Shopped for and made a fancy chiles rellenos style dinner
*One blog entry for IT Policy
Things I didn't do this weekend:
*My reading for Wednesday
*My stats homework and reading for Tuesday
*More catch-up blog entries for IT Policy
*Research for my IT Policy paper
*Any actual writing on my trade paper
I'm severely lacking in motivation, plus, it's finally decent outside and my skin wants some sun and breeze and physical activity! This doesn't work so well with sitting in front of a computer or poring over policy documents.
Posted by griffjon at 10:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Turducken of Chiles Rellenos
I'm trying an experiment -- jalapenos stuffed with pepperjack cheese, stuffed inside anaheims stuffed inside poblanos (with more cheese added at each step), baked with egg batter, casserolish style.
I've already decided that, while a nice alternative to getting my reading done, that was WAY TOO MUCH TIME spent peeling peppers (this recipe may be better performed in New Mexico, where you can outsource this kinda thing).
It's baking now, and I'm gonna get some reading done.
...
OK, they're alright. one too many peppers -- the jalapenos are still mostly raw while the poblano is crisping and the anaheim is soggy, and the casserole-batter attempt went poorly, but I still like the anaheim-and-cheese-inside-poblano effect, so it's worth a retry.
P.S The mofos are PICANTE
Posted by griffjon at 06:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 16, 2006
Worst. Tech Support. Evar.
So, I wss trying to print out my 1040 from TurboTax to fill out my Fafsa more easily (it gives all these hints e.g. (line 37 on 1040...) ). Since I'd entered my DC filing information (before I'd figured out that I could file to get it all back as a nonresident), TurboTax wouldn't let me print my Federal filing without paying to print my DC filing. You'd think that'd be a simple thing to communicate and perhaps come to some sort of conclusion.
You'd be wrong:
Terence A: Hi, my name is Terence A. How may I help you? Terence A: Hello, how may I help you today? Jon: I am having problems printing/viewing my completed federal forms Jon: I also have entered a state form, but I don't currently want to print that Jon: TTonline is requiring me to print and pay for the state forms to print the federal form Terence A: Jon, we apologize for the inconvenience/delay that this had caused you. Let us see what we can do to help you out with this one today, okay? Jon: great Terence A: And just to confirm Jon, what version of Turbotax Online product are you using? Is it Turbotax 1040EZ, Deluxe, Premier, Ultimate or the Free File Alliance Program? Jon: FreeFile Terence A: Jon, did you get any error messages/error codes during the process? And if any, what was the exact error code/error messages that was generated so that I could take note of it? Jon: it doesn't seem to be an actual error, it just won't let me choose to only print/view my federal return Terence A: Jon, have you tried searching the Help options on the Support web site of TurboTax first for answers before contacting Technical Support? What steps did you take and what were the results?Jon: Yes, they all instructed me to follow the path I had already taken to get to the print for my records menu, but nothing beyond that
(10 minutes go by. Did I break the chatbot and it had to go call for a real human?)
Jon: hello?
Terence A: Yes Jon, let me make sure I understand your concerns, you wanted to print and view your completed federal return and you can't. You also have entered information on your state but don't want to print that, is that correct?
Jon: Yes
Terence A: Jon, did you save first your federal return as a PDF FILE (".pdf" format) prior to viewing and printing?
Jon: I can't get to that step because it's asking me to pay for my state file
Terence A: Jon, can you please click on "state taxes" main tab.
Jon: ok
Terence A: Jon, what sub tabs under "State Taxes" can you see?
Jon: Your State Returns and State Review
Terence A: Jon, did you access your Turbotax Free File Alliance Edition through the IRS or is it through www.taxfreedom.com site?
Jon: IRS
Terence A: Jon, were you able to take note at the taxfreedom.com site below the red flag or red button that says "State available, fees apply" just below that red button?
Jon: I realize that the state print/filing costs moneyAm I just being mined for demographic info, or is their help script truly this bad?
Terence A: But Jon, were you able to take note of that-"State available, fees apply" just below that red button?
Jon: I did not use the taxfreedom.com site, I came through the IRS. I do not know which red button you are talking about
Terence A: Jon, accessing
Terence A: Jon, accessing Turbotax through the IRS site will direct you to www.taxfreedom.com. You can double-check that later on to see the information that I was mentioning you after we troubleshoot your issue.
Terence A: Now Jon, can you please click on "Your State Returns" sub tab.
Terence A: Jon, what does it say on your screen?
Jon: it lists my DC return
Terence A: Jon, does it give you option to "edit" it or "delete" it?At this point I'm fed up. I've already filed my DC request for reimbursement offline, but was just reluctant to actually delete it after putting the effort in, but the cost/benefit tipped somwhere during the last 20 minutes chatting with Terrence, and though I continue talking to him, it's out of spite to see how far we can go
Jon: Yes. I just deleted it so I can continue to print my federal return. I will just use the DC Gov't form for my DC return instead of filing through TurboTax
Terence A: Yes Jon. Can you please save it first as a PDF FILE before going through the process of printing?
Jon: NOW I can because I DELETED my state return. It was NOT POSSIBLE to do this previously without paying for the state return.
Terence A: Yes Jon. Please take note to save your return as a PDF FILE and to back up your returns as a TAX FILE using the "My Return" option at the lower mid-left portion of your screen and select "Other Options" then select "Download My Tax File" option.
Jon: that option does not exist on my screen
Terence A: In that way, you can have a reference for the next tax season and saving also your return as a PDF FIle will allow you to view or print a hardcopy of your return.
Jon: ah, now I see it
Jon: but when I had my state return entered it was still asking me for payment
Terence A: Would you agree that we have completely resolved your issue today?
Jon: yes
Terence A: Yes Jon. Federal is free but for State, there is a fee for that.
Terence A: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Jon: no
Honestly. I'm actually still not convinced that I wasn't dealing with an advanced version of ELIZA.
Posted by griffjon at 05:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Dotting i's
Obviously, I'm not in DC. I'm rescheduling for a more convenient-to-everyone time in May I think. It'll also give me a bit more time to plan my attack on The Big Apple.
So instead I telecommuted in for a few hours to work on a programming project for work, and made some definite headway on that, to the tune of saving us tons of time and volunteer-arm-twisting to get our ancient phone system's log files from a human-readable file into a data structure to run statistics against. Yay for changing boring tasks into interesting problems. (If anyone needs to extract reports from an Executone system, now you know where to go)
I then filed my FAFSA renewal as an important step in getting more loan monies for next year and avoiding that whole being poor phenomenon.
I meant to get a lot of reading done outside today, but these above items ended up taking a lot more time than I'd meant for them to (see entry on tech support from hell).
Posted by griffjon at 05:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 13, 2006
Punctuation matters.
" Please Note: We are not responsible for lost or stolen packages From all of us at Washington Deluxe - Have a safe trip!!"
I guess tipping isn't exactly a voluntary action?
That being said, I'm off to NYC next weekend ("Spring Break!"). Whee.
Posted by griffjon at 08:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 12, 2006
Yay, anti-productivity
This weekend has been a practice in getting non-school stuff done.
Friday night, I hung out with various an sundry friends at Island Jim's, an odd place within extended, if not exactly safe, walking distance from my house. It had decent drinks, and a good atmosphere -- it was an inside/outside patio place that will be fanstastic further into the spring and summer, and it ajoins a British pub type place, which will do well for next Winter. Bonus: it has free wifi. Is this my DC "default"? The crowd is an eccentric mix of NorthEast DC locals, students from Catholic University, and staff from the nearby hospitals. It's about a 15-20 minue walk from my house, but unfortunately it's not exactly a great neighborhood to be stumbling home through (Hasn't stopped me yet, mind you).
In celebration of an early sneak-preview of Spring, Saturday, I and some other grad students headed out into deep VA to visit the Virginia wine country. Three tastings and four bottles later, we were happily buzzed and well informed on Virginian wine. The short story is: their whites are decent, their reds suck ass, but it's a great way to spend the day.
That night, I linked up with a fellow ex-RPCV from Jamaica who's becoming my most reliable dancing partner in DC, and we and her friend from even deeper Virginia hit Havana Village for their salsa bands--Havana is definitely a good salsa club. You can usually avoid cover if you arrive there not-even-that-early, and even then it's $5-10, so not unheard of. They have three floors, two bands, and a DJ, serve excellent Mojitos and Caipirinhas, and are usually crowded enough to see some excellent salseros, but not so crowded that you can't squeeze in and join the dancing.
This morning, I forced myself to get out of bed instead of lounging in, and met my uncle at the Smithsonian for some museuming and lunch. He was in town on his way through NYC to see the Smithsonian's presentation of Dada on his way to Paris to work on his Dada book/project (you might say that he wrote the book on Max Ernst.
The remainder of the day, I'm doing some much-needed laundry, working on trip-planning for next weekend, and perhaps some catch-up work, planning my schedule for next semester, and whatnot. Whee.
Posted by griffjon at 05:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 07, 2006
DC Area Trivia
Localities in the DC area are so deeply ... FUBARed and confuzled.
There's a Chevy Chase neighborhood in DC, which is seamlessly integrated into Chevy Chase (city), Maryland, which overlaps mostly with a census-designated place called, also, chevy chase, and these border Chevy Chase Village. Chevy Chase the actor, born Cornelius Chase, was reportedly nicknamed Chevy and stuck with it into acting. Similarly, there's a Takoma Park, Washington, DC (No relation to Tacoma, Washington), and Takoma Maryland, which is one "city" that spans two "states" -- I've even found one of the boundary stones set in place by the original city planners, no doubt so the evils of the federal government could be kept in check through enchanted means or somesuch.
Also, zip codes cross municipality borders. I don't actually know if this happens in other dense cities, but a zip code could encompass 2 or three separate municipalities, which breaks my mind on how they should be laid out.
This, no doubt, is what happens when you let the French design your cities -- and it only makes it worse when you let Virginia reneg on the deal and take back (retroceded is the term, it seems, in 1847) half of the District.
More DC info at Wikipedia, including why there's a sculpture of Darth Vader on the National Cathedral
Posted by griffjon at 10:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 26, 2006
The Coffee Conundrum
I realize that I'm a coffee snob, and that were I not a coffee snob, I could use a coffee maker with a timer to solve this issue. But let's take for granted, for the moment, that I'm going to use a french press, because the coffee it makes is so superior.
Another given is that I am fully addicted to coffee. I freely admit this. I need coffee to function.
The condundrum, then, is how to make french press coffee before having coffee? It requires filling the teapot (but just perfectly so that you're not wasting time heating excess water!), boiling it, grinding coffee, placing the grounds into the press, pouring boiling water into the press, positioning the filter part of the press, moving the press to the table w/o spilling, and waiting for it to steep, then pressing, then finally pouring a cup -- all before coffee!
To be more specific, this morning was a royal running disaster.
My roommate's dog Megan had pooped and pissed all over the kitchen (what happens when everyone sleeps in on weekends), and this spurred my inner type-A OCD cleaning demon, so this ended up being sweeping, bleaching and mopping of the entire kitchen floor (mainly to replace that lingering dog-shit smell with a lingering bleach smell).
Then, while grinding the coffee, our grinder died. Luckily, it was close enough to ground that it was passable.
Then, I had defrosted the night before a loaf of orange bread that Mom had baked, so as to toast and eat it this morning. We don't have a handy toaster oven, so I was doing it in the oven, using its broiler. It's... rather....hyper broiler. So I smelled them getting probably just a bit too toasted (which is how I like them, to be fair) and opened the door, and was greeted by leaping flames coming off of the poor orange bread. "luckily" someone had left the back grill unlocked, so I placed the smoldering orange bread on the ledge outside and deactivated the now-screaming smoke alarm (and the teapot was boiling all at the same time, as well).
I recovered from that point, tho -- I sliced more orange bread (and didn't burn it), and the rest of breakfast went as normal. But still -- not a great way to begin the day.
Posted by griffjon at 10:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 17, 2006
Satellite/Airplane ads
So, rooftop advertising to capture a few eyeballs via satellite-maps (i.e. Google Maps) and hopefully mostly passenger airplane fly-overs is a good idea. Uses existing space, makes ugly rooftops at least a bit less boring, fine, whatever.
But seriously, if you're TARGET, it just seems like you're asking for bad things to happen.
(via BoingBoing)
Posted by griffjon at 10:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 10, 2006
OK, fine, it IS the apocalypse
CNN (via BoingBoing) reports that "The mummified body of a woman who didn't want to be buried was found in a chair in front of her television set 2 1/2 years after her death, authorities said."
Continuing;
An air conditioner had been left running upstairs, and that allowed the body to slowly mummify, he said. The machine apparently stopped working about a month ago, and the body began to smell."Standing outside, one could smell death," Owens said.
Posted by griffjon at 09:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 26, 2005
Resolutions tracking
Following
For 2k5 I set these up:
--Grad School: Get in, keep focused, kick ass, try not to go into too deep of debt.
--Geekliness: I need to upgrade my geek cred now that I'm back.
--Activism: I have problems with being in the US, and I want to redirect this frustration into positive activism, both on the warm-fuzzy volunteering for good causes kind, and the sabre-rattling kind of doing protests...
--Travel: Not a likelihood for 2k5, but I want to maintain it as an ideal.
--Live a good life: Especially over the next few months, I need to combine saving money, being good with the job, and living healthily, and simply.
--Figure things out.
Well, I did a decent job of these. I got in and got aid for grad school, and so far have kicked ass. I've been doing a good job at getting deeper into database stuff, though my language of choice continues to be perl. Activism has panned out less. I've maintained a lot of the work-on-the-side for PC/Ja's intranet and some geek help for EsperanzaEnAccion, but I didn't make it to the big protest in DC this year in time, and I haven't gotten involved up there. Yes, I'm in grad school full-time and working part-time, but still. I didn't figure as much out as I'd like.
So, for 2k6....
--Grad School AND THE FUTURE: Over the course of the next year, I need to narrow down my focus and start sniffing out realistic and enjoyable job opportunities.
--Activism: Also, focus down on a few topics/causes for real activism. Give the ACLU and EFF some money, and make this more of a priority than it has been. Of course, continue occasional blog/rants filtering through BBC, DailyKOS and similar.
--DC: If I stick with international dev, DC will probably be a decently important city in my life, so I need to make peace with it and find more things about it that I really and truly like.
--Travel: I also want to get out of the country again, I've been gettin itchy. There are still-nebulous plans to head down to Nica this summer, and I need to work with my job and find a travel grant or two to get that to work out.
--Keep in better contact: a LOT of people have kinda fallen off my radar. Basically everyone not on LJ or IM... I need to be a bit better about staying in touch.
--Fitness: The last month of finals and projects and cold and thanksgiving really didn't do much good for me. I've been good about staying active in DC and walking a lot, but I need to work on eating less and maybe getting some non-walking exercise in.
Posted by griffjon at 09:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Big Holiday Mass-email
I guess it's been kind of a big year, but it began and will end for me in Austin, even though temporarily.
I've mostly adapted to life in the States again after being in Venezuela and Jamaica for most of the previous three years (If you've been under a rock or I've been remiss in keeping in contact, and that's a surprise for ya, check www.griffjon.com/travel), returning last October. I helped my girlfriend from Peace Corps on the last days of the 2004 campaign season a bit (though not much, as going from hot and humid Jamaica to dry and cold New Mexico didn't sit so well), toured some grad schools, and spent December planning the next step and finishing applications.
I ended up in Austin starting in January, living in "Das Blue Haus", a living situation that's been passed through a group of friends there for almost 10 years when I joined in. Unfortunately, this 100-year-old historic home is now an empty lot awaiting high-rent, low-occupancy luxury condos, as the "Drag" and West Campus area near UT goes through another round of saddening gentrification/starbucksification. I worked with some of my former co-workers from eCertain at the technology commercialization office of UT, doing a pleasant assortment of random tech/IT duties. My most fun and hopefully long-lasting and beneficial task was to map out the various ghosts in the machines and create a central and living documentation project in the form of an internal "wiki".
So I passed spring and summer in Austin, enjoying the Austin life and defending my house in front of various historic-preservation and city hall panels until we finally lost a vote. You can read all about the house, its varied history of being home to your Austin-normal gathering of eclectics, musicians and academics at http://www.griffjon.com/dashaus/ .
The grad school acceptances rolled in, but fewer came with any financial support. I chose GWU's International Science and Technology Program in the end, and will continue my focus on IT in development work. Through GWU I can take classes at other DC-area programs, and they gave me by far the best deal.
I moved up to DC in early August as my lease came due and the haus was being torn apart (quite literally from under my feet!). I found a part-time job filling all the IT needs of a non-profit crisis call center in northern Virginia (CrisisLink.org). Grad school (rather, the reading load) has taken up pretty much every available hour outside of work and sleep, even to the point of catching a few pages on each leg of my subway journeys to school and work.
I'm here at the end of my first semester, still generally convinced that grad school is a good idea. Ask me again in a few years when I have to repay my loans...
I'm back in Texas for xmas and the new year, then back to the cold northeast for another round of grad school. Drop me a line, call (202-380-8782), or visit, and I hope you're having a great whatever you like to celebrate. This year I'm claiming to celebrate "Saturnalia," (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia) the original Roman holiday of cut-down trees, parties, and gift exchanges.
So, Io Saturnalia, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Joyous Solstice, Happy Kwanzaa, and so on and so forth. If you find anyone complaining about "Holiday Trees" please just remind them that "Christmas trees" are rightfully "Saturnalia Trees" and they should relax and enjoy the syncretism.
Oh, and happy (Western) New Years!
Posted by griffjon at 09:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 16, 2005
Death by caffeine...
Calculate how much coffee it would take to kill you. Evidentally, as few as 35 mugs of strong coffee could give me serious problems (such as death). Kinda scary, actually.
Posted by griffjon at 01:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 19, 2005
Darwin Award Nominee?
From the Sydney Morning Herald via BoingBoing :
A rugby fan who cut out his testicles with wire cutters to mark a Wales victory is at a loss to explain why he did it.Geoffrey Huish, 31, performed the impromptu self-surgery in February when his beloved Wales beat world champions England.
After performing the deed, Mr Huish put his severed anatomy in a bag and took them to his local social club to show fellow fans.
He collapsed with blood loss and was rushed to hospital but surgeons could not reattach his missing parts.
He was put in a psychiatric ward but has no history of mental illness and was at a loss to explain why he did it.
"I'd told my pal Gethin Probert before the game that Wales didn't stand a chance," Mr Huish told The Sun.
"It wasn't a bet but I said I'd cut my b*lls off if we won...
Posted by griffjon at 11:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 06, 2005
DOOM
So, I failed to lure even the most die-hard geeks from my program to go see DOOM for fun. So, I downloaded a cam of it and watched it last night. It wasn't as horrible as I thought. It was still a pretty bad movie, throwing out very, very predictable plot "twists" and some horrible one-liners. But, to give 'em credit, they didn't over-use the first-person perspective, and they did take on a Demon-Dog with a chainsaw.
I do like the idea that the human genome has an evil bit.
I wish they'd kept closer to the DOOM story line (man, that's hard to say!) and gone with the whole hell-unleashed-through-the-teleportation-devices; it allows for more cool CGI critters, and you can ditch the whole Mars-evolution craziness.
It is definitely a Carib movie -- that is to say, it almost makes me want to fly down to Jamaica and go to the 2-for-Tuesday special at the Carib 5 theatre downtown to see it, it'd be a riot. Maybe literally...
Posted by griffjon at 10:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 23, 2005
WTF: A collectionq
"Tropical Storm ALPHA" ???
Posted by griffjon at 09:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 11, 2005
Lighter side of Ja
To balance out the story from the other day, here's a piece from the Star, as seen in BoingBoing, of all places:
http://www.jamaica-star.com/thestar/20051006/news/news1.html
DARAIN HOUSEN HAS not taken off his hat for the last 20 years. He bathes, he sleeps and does everything possible in it. It is a perfect fit.But unlike other hats, his is not made of cloth but from the very hair on his head which is why it cannot be removed.
Housen has been sporting his 'natural hat' hairstyle for the last 20 years. The 40-year-old barber who lives in Somerset, St. Thomas said he came up with the idea after some of his friends decided to wear hats to a party but he could not find one to wear.
Posted by griffjon at 10:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 07, 2005
Jamaican Violence
From Ian, I thought some of my non-overlapping readers might get a nice dose of Ja reality from this:
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20051006/lead/lead1.html
FOR MANY residents of Barnes Avenue in St. Andrew, the screams of 10-year-old Sasha-Kay Brown, as she attempted to escape the fire which eventually took the lives of her grandparents, her aunt and herself, will live with them forever.Tearful women told The Gleaner yesterday how they heard Sasha-Kay crying out for help, until her voice faded in the blaze which destroyed the family's five-bedroom concrete house near Maxfield Avenue, yesterday morning.
Dorcas Brown, her husband Gerald, their daughter Michelle, along with Sasha-Kay, were trapped inside the building, after heavily armed gunmen fire-bombed their house about 3:00 a.m.
Neighbours who attempted to assist the young girl were fired at by the gunmen.
PLEADING FOR HELP"The little girl climbed up on the grill and called out the names of almost everybody who lived on Barnes Avenue, begging them to come and help her," said a woman who spoke with The Gleaner.
"But (when) we ran out of our houses and tried to assist her, the gunmen fired at us. The last thing we heard the little girl said was that the fire was burning her, then her voice just faded."
The charred remains of Sasha-Kay and her grandmother were found on the veranda while in another room were the burnt bodies of her aunt and grandfather.
...
"Me daughter should never lose her life so," the 26 year-old mother of three said.
...
Head of the West Kingston Police Division, Deputy Superintendent Delroy Hewitt, has linked the fire-bombing and death of the four family members to an ongoing gang feud in the community.
"We believe the fire-bombing is a reprisal to an incident in which a man was shot and injured. The injured man is now hospitalised under police guard," said DSP Hewitt.
The feud is between men from Barnes Avenue and Ramsay Road.
Posted by griffjon at 02:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ads
I figured I'd add in some advertisements to my website, mostly just google text ads, to see if I can bring in any $$ through that. If you don't like 'em, well, use FireFox and the AdBlock Plus extension, obviously, and you won't see 'em. Easy. I'll let you all know how it goes to my ability to report that publically.
Posted by griffjon at 12:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 25, 2005
Now that's just.... bizarre.
The Military helps evacuate the elderly:
Soldiers methodically loaded the elderly and sick onto baggage carts -- sliding stretchers onto the shelves normally used for suitcases -- and pulled them to the open ramps of huge cargo planes as they evacuated residents of hospitals and nursing homes in the path of Hurricane Rita.Working throughout Thursday night, military and civilian agencies pulled off an ambitious airlift in 19 hours to avoid repeating the failures of New Orleans, where hundreds of infirm residents were trapped and died before help could reach them.
Good job, creative thinking, and all that, but I'm just waiting to hear someone say;
"I'm sorry sir, but your grandmother seems to have ended up in Hoboken, New Jersey..."
Posted by griffjon at 11:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 23, 2005
Fun quote from my reading today
From my reading for Tech, Culture and Development
"Globalization has eviscerates the power of states, reducing them to mere instruments of policies that support the interests of global capital and the U.S. government."
-- Silvio Waisboard, "State, Development, and Communication" in _International and Development Communication_, Ed. Bella Mody
Posted by griffjon at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2005
Mas Gasolina
There's something inherently right and amusing about walking by an SUV cranking out the "Dame mas gasoliiiina" song while its human is frantically pumping $3.39.99/gallon gas into it.
Posted by griffjon at 03:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 06, 2005
First Class
Due to my Mon/Tues schedule, and labor day, today was my first actual class, and it's Econ for policy types. It seems like it will focus heavily on econ and policy interaction with mentions and summaries of the various Big Names in theories. There are 3 other ISTP people in it, and then lots of people from other policy-esque programs who I didn't really get a chance to meet much.
I think we covered in 2 hours the majority of what I remember from my undergrad survey of micro/macro econ. ( think the majority of what I don't recall is the math...
I'm hoping it's light on the calculus, because my calc is ... uh... 11 years old now? I crash-coursed this morning on it and recovered a surprising chunk (well, it's not like I have the chain rule memorized, but I know when to apply it), and it looks like the course will be heavier on essays than math questions. For anyone else in the oops-I-don't-know-calculus-boat, I recommend Tutorials for the Calculus Phobe. They're very basic, and at times painful, but they force you to go through all the elementary material, which I was having trouble with on the other calc sites. It takes you through limits and derivatives, and covers the derivative "shortcuts"/rules. Wikipedia's calc pages are particularly useless to learn calc from. Very info-rich, very not-useful if you don't already drink the koolaid.
I spent my metro ride home trying to figure out the demand curves for spam and puppies. I figured my spam demand curve is a point at $0 cost, 1 can of spam. Hey, free spam. I can make art out of it, or use it as catapult ammo. (requirement: build catapult). Puppies are a bit harder, as I am trying to capture the free-as-in-puppies version of free (contrast with free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech), free-as-in-puppies is like advertisements; sure, they're free, but they're worthless, and potentially of negative value to you. So, the puppies curve would seem to be inverted; the cheaper they are, the less value they confer (e.g. a crappy banner ad on some rand