Sandro's Journal

I think I'm going to start keeping a journal, for the first time in many years. You know, a personal, private journal, so I can get some of my thoughts about the day, etc, out... without having to find someone to talk to first. (and harder -- without having to find someone appropriately trustworthy, and appropriately interested.)

I'll probably type it.

I might even use LJ, because, hey, it's there. Errrr, here. I used it for private entries for a while in 2005. But those were deep, introspective writings that were just too private to share (until they were subpoena'd but that's another story). Here I'm talking about piddling shit. It's stuff that's not necessarily private so much as stuff I wouldn't want to bother my friends with.

That's not quite right. It's stuff that I wouldn't want to share because I have a standard of quality for my various publication feeds, and it would significantly lower the quality, at least in terms of the wisdom-to-babble ratio.

For these purposes, I don't want to be trying to seem wise, or contributing great thoughts, or respecting my readers' time at all. This is for *me*, not for "my reader", or it doesn't serve the purpose.

How do other folks deal with this?

Why does the YMCA need to know my name before they'll tell me how much membership costs? That totally creeps me out.

(Of course I could lie, but that's kind of beside the point.)

I've been missing old-style LJ, so here, from aroraborealis some questions and my answers:

What was your proudest achievement?

Either (1) submitting my first real grant application or (2) getting my son out of a living situation that was making him crazy. Both have since turned out to be filled with unintended consequences.

Your biggest change?

Having my son living with me full time, now.

Your happiest moment?

Roller skating at my 10yo's birthday party. (That's her with me in my LJ photo, about 8 years ago.)

Your saddest moment?

Discovering I'd damaged my knee while roller skating at that birthday party? Or maybe some of unintended consequences of the first items. It's complicated / not sure.

Your most exciting trip?

Not a lot of trips this year (see above). Business meeting in Lyon was pretty great, but that was mostly just because of the people/business, not the location.

Your favourite meal?

One night, Marc and I threw together a few quick dishes, which just somehow came out really well. The steamed beet greens were among the best things I've ever tasted.

The thing that made you laugh the hardest?

A joke hawkegirl made, when I asked if she happened to have a wetsuit I could borrow to fix something at the bottom of my pond. She said no, then mused about offering to do it for me (since she has her own wet suit, which would not fit me), then offered: "No, officer, I don't have any idea what my ex-wife's body is doing at the bottom of my pond."

What did you do that surprised you the most?

Spent the *first* weekend of the four weeks I had to write a grant application doing the bulk of the work, instead of the last.

What happened that you'd have never anticipated this time last year?

Going to a grant pitch meeting on crutches?

Who made you smile the most?

I first read this as "*What* made you smile the most?" and cynically but truthfully answered: Knowing that smiling makes me happier. As for who, I think that's got to be my youngest.

Do I know anyone who develops social software?

Do I know anyone who would develop social software, if it were easier/different?

By social software I mean any software that is used by multiple people, with some interaction or information flow between them. Lots of software is like this, even if it's not called "social".

I'm specifically looking for someone who is a bit unhappy with the process or prospect of developing this stuff. It can be hard to get a critical mass of people using your software. It can be hard to maintain a fast and reliable back-end when all you like to think about is the front end. It might be frustrating that you have to rely on some social network provider. It might be awkward trying to get people to use your corporate app for when they use a different app for personal stuff. ... or? what other frustrations do you have?

If this isn't you, but it sounds like someone you know, please introduce us. (best option is probably email to sandro@hawke.org)

Thanks!

I just wrote a nice post about something really important to me that I accomplished this week. And somehow between emacs and firefox and lj, it got lost.

Oh well.

(It ended with saying "So if you see me at baitcon, feel free to give me a pat on the back." But now you wont know why.)

Okay - the one line version is that I turned in some grant applications for funding to work on the thing in my previous LJ poll. But somehow, that version leaves out all the drama....

(Please take the time to answer this. It's important to me.)

Imagine if all the websites you use and the apps on your phone stored the data they collect from you in a place where you could control it. In today's world, every time you buy something, every time you search for something, every move you make in a game, every comment you post, every "like" or "+1" button you press, every time you follow a link from one site to another, ... everything you do online today can be recorded and kept, somewhere beyond your reach. Imagine if, instead, it was stored by a service that you selected and which would do as you asked. If you wanted it deleted, or changed (but not to cheat someone), you could open the control panel and do it. If you wanted to download it, archive it, even upload it elsewhere, you could do that. And everything still worked fine.

You might worry this new service would now know too much. But it would be one of many, and you could move between them when you felt like it, and maintain multiple independent personna accounts. More importantly, because you would not be locked in, these providers would be competing to serve you better, with the best privacy policies and terms of service, at a price you like.

Please, for now, ignore the questions of how this might work, and how we'd get everyone to switch.

Poll #1830744 owning your data
Open to: Friends, detailed results viewable to: Friends, participants: 29

If you could switch your apps today, so they would store your data like this, on a cloud server you control, would you do it?

View Answers

I don't understand, sorry
1 (3.6%)
No, I'm happy with things as they are
0 (0.0%)
No, I don't really like this plan
0 (0.0%)
Yes, I'd use it as long as it was free
4 (14.3%)
Yes, and I'd pay $10 per year for this
10 (35.7%)
Yes, I'd probably pay $5 per month this
7 (25.0%)
It's so awesome, I'd even pay $15/mo for this
2 (7.1%)
Other, please explain in comments
4 (14.3%)

So, if you had $10K you needed to invest in a startup, would you invest in this?

View Answers

I simply cannot imagine this situation
4 (14.8%)
I can imagine it, but I still have no clue what I'd do
9 (33.3%)
No, I'd rather invest in something that might rule some market
0 (0.0%)
No, this is too ambitious; it wont work out, long term
5 (18.5%)
Yes, even commodity business make money, if they are run well
1 (3.7%)
Yes, this just sounds so awesome
4 (14.8%)
Other, please explain in comments
4 (14.8%)

It's tempting to join the stream and post a (true and heartbreaking) ididnotreport (from the 70s), but I just use twitter for professional contacts, so that really doesn't seem like a good idea. I dunno. I'm not great at the whole "out" thing any more.

Anyone have an recommendations or advice about refinancing? I've never done it before, and there are a few complications in this case.

I suppose lj is passe now.

ETA: and the UI is confusing. I thought I was posting this in a different place, one that had been unused since 2005.

Poll #1806619
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

View Answers

I sometimes write code that uses a database (MySQL, Mongo, etc)
5 (17.2%)
I sometimes write code that involves users interacting with each other
4 (13.8%)
I'm comfortable writing in Javascript
4 (13.8%)
I'm comfortable writing in Python
4 (13.8%)
I'm local to Boston
6 (20.7%)
I'd be interested in attending a talk/tutorial on a new shared, open, global database platform you're developing
4 (13.8%)
I'd be interested in playing with it, but not attending a talk/tutorial
2 (6.9%)
This isn't for me, but you should talk to some friend(s) of mine, who I just emailed you about
0 (0.0%)
None of the above, thank you very much.
0 (0.0%)

View Answers

I'll need to see some technical details first
3 (30.0%)
I could probably attend on a Monday evening
2 (20.0%)
I could probably attend on a Tuesday evening
3 (30.0%)
I could probably attend on a Thursday evening
1 (10.0%)
I'd even give this a Saturday evening
0 (0.0%)
All day Sunday, too!
1 (10.0%)
None of the above / Not applicable
0 (0.0%)

I was looking at a google map of my neighborhood and noticed "Waltham Airport", more or less on a neighbor's lawn. Several sources confirm this location for "WLM". Very very strange. I guess maybe there used to be an airstrip there, and when they built houses over it, it never got de-listed from various databases?

Does anyone know of a carrier that will let you use a smartphone without paying $30+/mo for data service?

(this is for my kids.... they don't need data service; I just want to pay the $9.99 per line, but I'd like them to be able to be android phones.)

Am I right in assuming that laser disks are entirely worthless now? I have about 40 movies. I suppose I could keep their 12" sleeves as art....

The last time I wired a house for ethernet, 100Base-T was state-of-the-art.

The walls and ceiling in my new house are open now, so it's the time to wire it, but I don't know what kind of wires to use, and what constraints I have. It's hard to sort through the stuff I'm seeing on the Web. Anyone have a quick bottom line for me?

(If you say "just use wifi", I will smile and nod and ignore you. Wifi has it's place, but when it's not a problem, in my experience, wires are much better.)

Thanks!

Should I hold a little bbq/party Monday afternoon, at my new house? It now has electricity, a working bathroom, and two chairs. And it's kinda nice.

(it does not however, have any sort of kitchen.)

How should I pick colors for my new house?

It's currently painted in a fancy Victorian 6-color style, which is mostly pleasing, but incomplete in some places and peeling in others.

High-res pictures for anyone who wants to suggest a color scheme [possibly via photoshop :-) ] are here.

My offer for 23 Lord Street, Waltham has been accepted. Assuming there are no great unpleasant surprises in the inspection or mortgage process, by June I should be a home owner again.

I'm a bit nervous about moving after five years renting the very comfortable house I'm in now, and about taking on a big old house in need of work, but the location and price and size and architecture ... well, it's the best option I've seen on the market in years.

Now, if I can just figure out what to do with that absurd koi pond in the front yard.

I seem to be the only person who has submitted an elevator pitch for the Semantic Web, yet, so they featured my video:

http://semanticweb.com/

(in a few days, it'll move off that page; here's the permalink.)

Is there an effective technique for finding out which of my friends, or even friends of friends, wants to chat about some particular topic I feel like talking about?

... without bothering everyone else.

I saw a facebook meme with all the usual rules, about coming up with 15 of your favorite albums in 15 minutes. In thinking about that, it seems to me there's a big gap between the albums I merely liked a lot and the albums I listened to a hundred bajillion times. And it seemed like there were about 20 of the latter, so I've listed 20.

Berkeley Years (childhood)