This should be of interest to the anthropologists on my flist;

Paula Lloyd, the anthropologist and member of the Human Terrain program who was set on fire in Afghanistan, has passed away after two months in a coma. I have a few friends on Facebook who went to high school and college with her, and they have been very distraught over the news.

I hesitate to call them resolutions, as there isn't really anything earth shattering about them. However, I do think that these are realistic goals that need to be done this year.

1. Lose 30 Pounds
   • I started on the Hacker's Diet back in August, and have lost twenty pounds since then. I have noticed small changes in me, and I like that there is less of me to drag around.
   • While the last couple of months have had zero lost weight, I also haven't gained any weight. Considering November started off with a two week visit from my mother-in-law and lots of banana bread, followed by Thanksgiving, my birthday and the holidays, I consider that a win.
   • So, keeping with the winning streak, I intend to lose another 30 pounds by the end of 2009.
2. Get to work on time
   • I've gotten into a really bad habit of dragging myself to work almost whenever I feel like it. I have flex time, so as long as I put in eight hours it's not a huge problem. However, I now have the reputation now of being a bit unreliable when it comes to showing up to work and keeping early morning appointments.
   • The traditional Boeing engineering schedule is 7:30am to 4pm with an unpaid half hour off for lunch. I'm not too keen on being in at 7:30am, but considering some of my co-workers had been here four hours by the time I got in today at 11am, I think there is room for improvement.
   • My lead is usually in at 9am, which strikes me as a much more sane time. Showing up to work either before or at the same time as him on a daily basis would go a long ways towards reforming my image as a night owl.
3. Spend less time "wasting time" on the computer
   
   • I have a habit of getting lost on the Internet. It's time spent in a daze, reading whatever is in front of my eyes. As one person on Wikipedia put it, it's a library that never closes. I always find it fascinating and tend to learn a lot of marginally useful things, but I rarely produce anything useful from it. Even just sitting here on LiveJournal and writing down these goals is a useful exception to this behavior.
   • While I don't think it would be healthy to stop all online exploration, it needs to be balanced with productive activities such as writing, programming or just plain unplugging and getting out of the house.
   • I think that spending more focused time on finishing some projects I have started will help, but there are drawbacks.
     
     • Organizing and then executing tends to be my biggest pitfall. I can waste lots of time organizing, or waste lots of time executing without organization. For example, if I just "spend time doing something" I won't know where to start, or I'll get frustrated quickly and stop.
     • I've tried to-do lists like Jott and Evernote, but they tend to be easily ignored.
     • I haven't taken a close look at idea or mind-mapping, but it feels like it is in the wrong direction for me. Big picture stuff I tend to understand.
     • I need to get better at taking a task and breaking it into sub-tasks so that it doesn't feel quite so overwhelming or grandiose.
   • If anyone has any suggestions on this, I'm all ears.
4. Focus more on my health
   • Some of it I'd rather not go into on a public posting, but suffice to say it includes the above three goals (diet, a more regular routine and behavior modification / "mental health").
5. Grow Food
   
   • As a kid, my mother and father went to a lot of trouble to make sure that my brother and I had plenty of fresh food on the table. Since there wasn't much else in the way of entertainment out in the boondocks, I was usually dragged kicking and screaming into the garden to help.
   • Over time, I had gotten lazy with respect to food and nutrition and took a lot of things that I had back then for granted. As part of my diet, I took a good hard look at what I was ingesting and decided to quit eating crap.
   • Then the economy took a dump. In reading up on how people survived the Great Depression, the one overwhelming fact was that people were able to grow their own food. Even city dwellers found creative ways to have a garden, and were able to either eat what they grew or trade it for other goods.
   • So, I'm figuring out how to do this. The city of Seattle has a system of community gardens called P-Patches that are available for a minimum investment of time and money. Also, while my mom was out here for Christmas, I made one of her gifts to me teaching / reminding me how to grow plants. I've got a few herbs and a juniper that will become a bonsai tree. They seem to be dying already, but it's a cheap start.
6. Spread my money around a bit
   
   • Yes, that sounds bizarre in this economy but I can't think of a better way to say it. This doesn't mean that I intend to spend more money, but it does mean that I should spend my money on a more diverse group of... recipients?
   • For example, in the past I have used what I consider discretionary spending primarily on physical stuff; books, computer parts, tools, and other things. While this isn't bad, I haven't spent as much on ideas, causes or "free" software.
   • In the process of buying small apps for my iPhone, I realized that I have access to many more applications that could also use a few bucks here and there. It's one of those things I've been meaning to do, but it seems that it's easier to ignore the ideas, causes and "free" software while focusing on buying stuff.
   • Before the end of 2008, I gave $30 to the Wikimedia Foundation. Not much, and certainly not much compared to how often I use it, but it was a start. Mozilla, Kiva, TortoiseSVN and The Nature Conservancy are on my short list as well.

Can someone explain to me why the "liberal-biased main stream media" has yet to snuff out Governor Palin and her irresponsible name calling? She has direct connections to the Alaskan Independence Party, a pro-violence extremist group with ties to Iran, yet she gets to parade around and attempt to smear Obama as "anti-American"?

The articles in Salon, the Toronto Star and Huffington Post should be enough to shame Presidential Barbie into silence on the issue, and yet she blathers on.

 

Yanked from fairmer:

From What Privileges Do You Have?, based on an exercise about class and privilege developed by Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, Stacy Ploskonka at Indiana State University. If you participate in this blog game, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

http://wbarratt.indstate.edu/socialclass/social_class_on_campus.htm

(Like Mer, I also feel a need to add qualifiers, for example: dad went to the local community college for a semester before joining the Air Force; lots of teachers and veterinarians in the family, both of which are highly educated and a big deal in farm country, but no people physicians or professors; I went to a private high school due to a need-based scholarship that paid for most of it; the single family vacation that didn't involve visiting relatives did involve a hotel... technically; and I'm not sure if having a phone in my room counts as "privilege" if I had to wire it up to the family line myself)

1. Father went to college
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
9. Were read children's books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in High School
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

Seems I'm not the only one who didn't believe the hype. Now that their servers are working again, I can actually attempt to use it. For comparison, I'll try a simple, unique, single word search. Using my last name:

1. Google: 13,500 hits
   
2. Yahoo!: 29,300 hits
   
3. MSN / Live Search: 7,450 hits
4. Ask: 1,410 hits
   

Cuil? No such luck. Evidently my last name might be...

• a typo. Please check your spelling.
• your search includes a term that is very rare. Try to find a more common substitute.
• too many search terms. Please try fewer terms.

Or I should try to think of different words to describe my search. How about "SAY MY NAME BITCH!"? Not only does it return results, it includes such relevant categories as "Number-one Singles in New Zealand" and links to sites such as Utterz - I always say my name is Tom. Its easier.

121,617,892,992 web pages, and no mention of me at all. Apparently I'm not as Cuil as I thought.

Let's make a few assumptions about Cuil:

• It is the latest, greatest, freshest and sweetest-smelling Web 2.0 company that ever lived
• Founded by the greatest minds to ever leave Google
• They have a bigger page index than Google
• Their privacy policy is second to none
• It really is pronounced "cool"

None of this changes the fact that their server farm is tits up.

Moral of the story: Brag if you want, but if the only search that doesn't return "No results because of high load..." is a search for "google", you will look dumb.

While it's not a "real" simulator by our standards, it's close. It is built mainly from parts that are commercially available, and most of the software is the same as what we run on the main engineering flight simulators.

The out-the-window scene is Microsoft Flight Simulator X, but the displays that the pilots use (what we call the heads down displays) are what I helped to develop.



The full article is available at AVweb.

Yes, a crude Photoshop job (technically, it's Comic Life), but I think it needs to be said.

For both c0nsumer and badmovie:

Special salt from Seattle cures soldiers' craving for bacon

So, Facebook has a group for alumni of Choate Rosemary Hall. I joined it, even though I am alumni by technicality and make no claims of being a graduate of the school. Some names and faces I recognize, some I don't. Well, today a couple of people asked for more background information from members of the group. I obliged, and managed to put the last 17 years of my life into a few tidy paragraphs, so I figured I'd share here:

OK, here goes...

After being "the first person in the history of the economics department to fail economics" according to Mr. Cobbett, I was unceremoniously kicked out of Choate in 1990 and eventually graduated high school in 1992. I spent a couple of years working for a non-profit search and rescue organization, and decided it was time to go to college in 1994. The only school I applied to was the University of Michigan, and I was summarily rejected (something about "grades").

Getting used to failure by now, but still a stubborn SOB, I went to the nearest community college and discovered the back door into Michigan. By the time I applied again, I had earned a 3.7 GPA (with one A+) *at* Michigan and the admissions department had no choice but to submit to my will.

I settled on computer science to avoid the social stigma of being called an engineer. Since the degree was through the liberal arts college rather than the engineering school, I also managed to get a minor in Russian language, literature and culture. Along the way, I worked on a research project for the Department of Aerospace Engineering, was a TA for a 200-level introductory programming class, and met my future wife.

After graduating in 2003, I got a job with Boeing in Houston as a software tester for the International Space Station. Spending a year and a half as a snowball in hell convinced me to find someplace else to work, so I transferred within Boeing to Seattle. Today I do software development on the 787 Dreamliner for the displays the pilots use to fly the airplane. I spend parts of my day in large flight simulators figuring out why things don't work quite right, and making sure that everything will work right on the first flight. My wife and I have three furkids (a cat, a dog and a puppy) with no plans to enlarge the family anytime soon.

I'm working my dream job, and for as rough a road as it has been I wouldn't trade my experiences for anything. And yes, I can still sing the school song! Not well, mind you, but at least I still remember the words.

In the past at this time of year, I usually wind up telling a crass joke about the holiday. Well, this year I've discovered that there really are worse ways to spend Easter.

Imagine you have had a cough. It's been hanging around on and off for the past couple of months, but in just the last week, it's gotten really bad. You go to your doctor, the one who's been proscribing you antibiotic meds for pneumonia, and you finally convince him to have him run an x-ray on you.

The x-ray comes back finds an anomaly in your chest, and then a follow-up CT scan reveals something awful: you have a large, cancerous tumor in your chest, over 6 inches big, compressing your lung.

You're young and in good health. You've never smoked in your life, and you hardly ever drink. And you've just been married for less than 8 months.

How would you react?

Text swiped from a friend of my friend...

Sherwin Chen works as a designer of the flight deck of the 787, specializing in the graphical displays that the pilot uses. I've worked with him, gotten to know a bit about him, and have even asked for a personal favor from him now and then. He is, as another friend would say, "good people".

Finding out on Friday that he now has a drainage tube in his chest and has started four months of chemo hit me like a ton of bricks. I had to leave work early, and even now I spend idle time thinking about it.

http://www.seattle.gov/onhold/

Apparently, there is a department in the City of Seattle whose mission statement includes improving the quality of "on hold" music by featuring various local artists.

In case you have no reason to be on hold with the City of Seattle, their hold music is also available as an audiostream, complete with an archive of past hold music mixes. Or if you want to listen to City of Seattle hold music while waiting for non-City-of-Seattle events, (at the bus stop or in the grocery store, for example) you can bring it with you on your iPod by subscribing to the iTunes podcast. There are also links to Amazon in case you want to purchase the music you have just listened to.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think this is actually pretty cool. To my mind, when management talks about "synergy", this is the kind of improbable scenario I come up with and everyone laughs at. But it works! And now I have a concrete example to point to!

I might be making slyon a sad panda because I didn't take a picture of it, but the greater Portland area does have a road named "Beef Bend".

Also, every hotel I've called so far tonight is completely booked. Being born at the right time saved my butt last night, however I should not always rely on that.

After working 111.1 hours in 11 days, I decided to take a few days off (with management encouragement, actually). Along with that, as part of the competition for the title of "Best. Wife. Evar.", macates suggested I take a road trip.

So, I'm here in McMinnville, Oregon about to enjoy a vintage aircraft fly-in as well as the Evergreen Aviation Museum. Tomorrow will most likely be spent in the aisles of Powell's Books.

On the way down, even though I felt like I was running late, I stopped to take some pictures of a hillside that has been recently logged. The sun was just right, and it made for a rather spectacular view. So, as an attempt as a picture travelogue (travelphotoblog?), here is Orange Mountains Majesty (working title).

Look for oodles of airplane pictures in the near future.

Step 1: Acquire chicken



Last week, Mary came home to a rooster in the backyard. We still have no idea how it got there, but it did a substantial amount of ground cover displacement in the process of scratching for worms.

Mary called City of Seattle animal control, and there response was "Yeah, Seattle has a lot of chickens roaming around. Usually by the time we get there, they've wandered off. So we won't come out unless you've already captured it." To this, my feeble, tax-payer brain says "THEN GET OUT HERE FASTER!".

So... lots of rain, granola eating tree huggers, earthquakes and marauding chickens. Which one do you think was left out of the "Welcome to Seattle" brochure?

Yes Virginia, there is a 787.



I've been simulating this airplane for the last 3 years, so it's really cool to reach out and actually touch something I've helped create.

So, last week, I got a promotion and a raise. I'm still waiting on a pony.

In more geekly news, I've renewed my love/hate relationship with electronics. Not gadgetry, mind you, but real burn-your-fingers-with-soldering-iron electronics. Hate because a lot of what I've built in the past either didn't work well or didn't work at all. Love because... well... WIRES! LIGHTS! SHINY! I can't help it. I recognize it's a sickness. The fact that I have a ham radio license only serves as an enabler to draw me back.

( A Long History of My Microprocessor Projects )

Technolust? Probably. But nothing comes in until all of the old stuff is sold. Of all the systems listed above, I've only gotten rid of the Boe-Bot and the uCsimm so far. Everything else needs to get on eBay or craigslist.

Hard to believe an animated GIF could contain so much information...

I'm sitting here noodling with Subversion and compiling code for a big release on Monday, when I get a phone call. Executive summary:

"Hello, this is Microsoft Usability Testing. We want you to come to Redmond on Saturday and spend 7 hours playing our games. We will be serving lunch, and we'll give you 2 pieces of Microsoft software as compensation. Are you interested?"

Damn you, Evil Empire, and your excellent games and free food!