Jeff's LiveJournal

There's been a lot of firetrucks around recently.

Two months ago we had a big fire alarm at the office and had nearly the entire fleet out to investigate a chemical smell that triggered sensors in the building (probably residue from paint).


A few weeks later while dining at Chinatown on Mopac, we observed that their used cooking oil had overflowed into their parking lot and down the access road of the highway. This was naturally causing a large environmental issue, a tremendously offensive odoriferous release, as well as a driving traction impairment. Never fear, AFD to the rescue to help clean up the mess with some absorbent granules.

Then two weeks ago they had to come to assist with the "partybus incident" in front of my house and the cleanup of the spilled gasoline with more absorbent granules, though I wasn't home at the time to watch.


And just this weekend, my neighbor across the street decided that his rotting fence needed replacement so he apparently recruited some of his friends to rip out the old one and start the new one. Unfortunately, in their enthusiasm to use shovels and pickaxes to dig new fencepost holes, they forgot to call the gas company to mark the underground gas lines. Excitement ensued as two firetrucks were required to blocked off all access to the intersection for several hours while the gas company repaired the line and allowed the released gas to dissipate.

I wonder what the average percentage of their calls are not actually fire related.

For the last several months my Jeep has been slowly dripping anti-freeze from a joint near the top of the radiator. Within a week or two it would leak the amount of coolant between the "refill needed" and "full" lines on the overflow tank, but I have been carrying a spare bottle of 50% coolant with me just in case I needed to refill while I was away.
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Click to embiggenIn any case, by doing it myself I ended up saving about $460 and gained some automotive experience. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the old radiator.

In recognition of unending advancement of time, and the passage of one year since the last one, I'd like to welcome all of my local peeps to a celebration!

What is everyone's availability for a dinner at the Melting Pot on either this Friday, Saturday, or Sunday evening? (We'll pick the evening that the most people can accommodate.)

update: Time is Saturday at 5:30pm!

So just prior to the election, I happened to become introduced to simplistic websites like "IsObamaPresident.com", "IsMcCainPresident.com", and "IsSarahPalinPresident.com". After noticing that "IsPalinPresident.com" was still unclaimed, I quickly registered it and put up an comparably simplistic page. I didn't mention the existence of the domain anywhere other than in my regular IRC channels, but quite a few other people must have discovered it just by guessing. 200k hits later and I got asked some questions from a reporter/blogger from the Wall Street Journal:

Jeff Lawson, a 30-year-old tech-industry worker in Austin, was chatting with his friends online about election-related “Is” sites. The domain IsSarahPalinPresident.com already existed, but the breezier IsPalinPresident.com did not. So Mr. Lawson paid a few bucks just before election day to scoop up the Web address, one of several so-called vanity domains he has bought.

“It was basically only the cost of a couple of drinks from Starbucks, which is a fair price for a few laughs with my friends,” Mr. Lawson said. (For the record: “No,” it says, followed by, “And hopefully not in 2012 either.”) He’s paid up for the Web adress until next November, but Mr. Lawson isn’t sure whether he’ll keep the site up beyond that. “I’ve already had my fun,” he says.

http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/11/13/isobamapresident-and-other-single-serving-sites/

(Cross posted from my grid.org blog)

For those who don't already know, distributed.net achieved another significant milestone last weekend by completing the OGR-25 project. Over the ~8 years of the project, we've had the computers of nearly 125,000 people contribute (and many people have more than one computer participating). Here's the full announcement that I made regarding the completion, as well as the separate announcement for the next OGR project. Launching a new project for us is always an exciting time, including a flurry of activity involving backend server updates and finalizing the new project's code.

distributed.net's recent success was mentioned in several prominent websites, including the venerable Slashdot (Distributed.net Finds Optimal 25-Mark Golomb Ruler).

Another nice blog mention was in Mark Hopkins' blog post "Microsoft’s Azure is So 1997 (and Why I Love it)", which reminds us that today's recent cloud computing initiatives are basically just building upon the time-tested concepts of the past.

In the 1998 Supreme Court decision of California v. Greenwood, it was found (among other things):

It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left on or at the side of a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public.... Moreover, respondents placed their refuse at the curb for the express purpose of conveying it to a third party ... Accordingly, having deposited their garbage ... in an area particularly suited for public inspection and, in a manner of speaking, public consumption, for the express purpose of having strangers take it ... respondents could have had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the [items that were] discarded.^{[findlaw.com]}

Furthermore:

The question, then, becomes whether placing garbage for collection constitutes abandonment of property ... [T]he placing of trash in garbage cans at a time and place for anticipated collection by public employees for hauling to a public dump signifies abandonment ... [T]he act of placing garbage for collection is an act of abandonment which terminates [any protection]... The act of placing [garbage] for collection is an act of abandonment and what happens to it thereafter is not [protected].^{[findlaw.com]}

In the 1995 case of United States v. Hall, United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, it was found that:

It is common knowledge that commercial dumpsters have long been a source of fruitful exploration for scavengers. ... [The defendant] did not take sufficient steps to restrict the public's access to its discarded garbage; therefore, its subjective expectation of privacy is not one that society is prepared to accept as objectively reasonable..^[emory.edu]

Additionally, summarized elsewhere:

Stealing trash is not illegal. The Supreme Court ruled in 1988 that once an item is left for trash pickup, there is no expectation of privacy or continued ownership.

By definition anything in a dumpster is waste and therefore not needed and abandoned by the owner. So you can recover anything from the trash that you want.

The problem is the location of the dumpster. If the dumpster is on private property then you can't access it without trespassing.^{[answers.com]}

It would of course be perfectly reasonable for an occupant of the building to access a dumpster that is provided by a building for the express use by its business tenants.

Our office building recently deployed a large dumpster outside for collecting discarded cardboard boxes for recycling. Unfortunately the recycling company had not been able to empty it for almost two weeks and by this morning it had been overflowing with empty boxes, with many more on the ground surrounding it. Well finally the recycling company comes by this morning and empties it, and collects most of the boxes that were sitting around on the ground. As I was driving home this evening I noticed that they had missed a box on the ground, so I walked over to it to throw it back in the bin for next time. As I walked closer, I noticed this box wasn't empty at all and in fact looked pretty interesting! It was a large piece of hollow metal, shaped like a cow!


(Click to embiggen)
It turns out that is a copper weather vane that someone apparently didn't want and just decided to throw away. Some packing materials that came with it indicate it was a "Hereford Bull" made by the West Coast Weather Vanes company. After I got home, I found their website and found the product listing for their hand-hammered 3-foot model Hereford Bull. It's quite surprising someone would want to throw away such a pretty thing, especially considering the scrap value of copper these days. I'll have to figure out a way to mount it on top of cowhouse this weekend.

I had fun at the Presidents of the United States of America concert last night at Stubb's BBQ. I managed to convince Yang and (more surprisingly) Johnno to join me. Although they played a few of their newer songs, they also did a lot of songs from their old 1995 album (Kitty, Lump, Boll Weevil, Peaches, Dune Buggy, We Are Not Going to Make It, Kick Out the Jams, Body, Back Porch). Below is a YouTube video I recorded of "Boll Weevil".

The opening act was local Austin band, The Black and White Years, though I only found their "Power to Change" song (which gets occasional airtime on 101X) to be notable.

Here's some interesting cow-related news that has just been discovered by using Google Earth images:

"Studying photographs of 8,510 cattle in 308 herds from around the world, zoologists ... found that two out of every three animals in the pictures were oriented in a direction roughly pointing to magnetic north."

"Cows are known to align their bodies facing uphill, facing into a strong wind to minimize heat loss or broadside to the sun on cold mornings to absorb heat, but the fact that the pictures were taken at many locations, at different times of day and in generally calm weather minimized the effect of environmental factors, the researchers said."

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-cows26-2008aug26,0,3764260.story

This past Sunday I arrived back in Austin from a 2-week roadtrip that I spontaneously decided to take. My goal was to visit interesting places that I had never seen before. In total I drove about 4500 miles in my Jeep Wrangler (and 18 tanks of gas). I got to meet up with Mike Woss (ex-coworker), Lucent (first IRL meeting with long-time d.net buddy), Mary Bass (coworker), and Rey/Swiggy (ex-coworker).

There were a few cities that I had hoped to go through (Atlanta and Birmingham) that I ended up cutting out so that I could spend more time in other locations. I could have easily have spent more time in most of my stops if I had more vacation time.

I bought a new Digital SLR camera (Nikkon D40) specifically for the trip, so I had some fun playing around with it at the same time. Snorkeling and night-time kayaking in Key West were both pretty fun. Visiting Kennedy Space Center was also pretty neat, since I had been involved with parts of the Shuttle missions but never seen the launch facilities. The Great Smokey Mountains National Park was also a great place to explore and hike around.

• My photo gallery of my trip photos
• Approximate Google Map trail of the path I took
• YouTube video of my Everglades fanboat tour
• My personal wiki page that I was using to plan my trip and sights

(Click pictures above to embiggen)

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I've been delaying the posting of this blog entry, but since there haven't been any new developments I thought I should finally post it...

iGive.com is a website that allows people to shop at popular e-commerce retailers and have a small percentage of the purchase sent to a charity that you nominate. In theory it's a nice idea, however I've noticed a few problems with their implementation, particularly in regard to the security and confidentiality of the personal information of members that sign up. distributed.net has been using iGive since 1997, though my opinion of them has been lowered as a result of this (and other actions that are not covered here).

iGive elected to belong to the TRUSTe "web privacy seal" program, which has the goal of providing some assurance to internet users that their privacy can be safely entrusted to a website. Most of TRUSTe's assurance comes from requiring websites to pay a certification fee and have a privacy policy that complies with TRUSTe requirements, but they don't actually seem to do their own auditing unless someone makes a complaint. There are other critics that claim that TRUSTe does not take a proactive role in monitoring or punishing organizations.

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TRUSTe recently made a blog post warning that "encoding an ID# in the URL or relying on another mechanism that can be changed by the user risks exposing data". I don't know if iGive qualifies as a "major consumer web site ... [that exposes] passports", but I'm sure they were at least attempting to aggregate the lessons from iGive's problems in that post.

About two years ago I bought a kayak and I've been using it every few weeks to explore some of the local waterways and enjoy the scenery. Here's a few Google Maps that I made of the places I've gone while kayaking around Austin recently.
( Maps and pictures behind here... )
I intend to try some places further away from the city sometime soon, instead of repeating previous ones (as I have been). There's also some more local places to try on Austin Kayak's boating map. I also need to try out the Texas Parks and Wildlife Paddling Trails and some other paddling areas.

Freebies:

• Johnkw and I attended an Agile Austin lecture on May 6 and I think there were about 80 people in attendance. At the end of the talk they drew random numbers to give out 3 door prizes, and he and I both won prizes. He got a book on agile development, and I got a license to IntelliJ IDEA (a commercial Java IDE based on Eclipse).
  
• My XM Radio service is still receiving free radio after 5 months, since I installed it in January. I guess they don't retransmit their entire whitelist/blacklist of authorized radio IDs frequently enough to catch my short commutes.
• My T-Mobile cell phone bill normally automatically charges to my credit card every month on the 23rd. Last month there was no April 23rd charge so I call T-Mobile and ask about it. They said that somebody else paid my bill in advance by phone (perhaps they entered the wrong account number), but they didn't know who or what credit card was used to do it. They recommended just leaving the credit and see if it eventually gets retracted. I did get billed on May 23rd, so I guess it was only a one-time freebie.

Lucky recoveries:

• I went kayaking last weekend and as I was getting back on land, I apparently dropped my phone on the dock without noticing it. After finishing dinner at Chuy's and realizing my phone was missing, I returned to the dock and the manager there had luckily found and kept my phone. No damage either!
  
• This week I've had the windows open ventilating Cowhouse rather than running the A/C, and naturally the cats like to sit by the open windows and look out. Apparently Jasper was leaning too hard against the screen window and fell out from the second floor to the ground below--I didn't realize he was missing until around 10pm. Using a flash light I quickly found him hiding under one of the bushes in the backyard uninjured.
  

Any local Austinites interested in an old basketball backboard hoop with chain net? You'll just need to install some kind of permanent vertical post in your ground someplace, and then you can mount this backboard to it.

Cowhouse came with one installed in the front driveway, but I have no use for it so I took it down.

I'll probably post this on Craigslist in a few days if no one's interested, but I wanted to give the people who know me a chance to claim it first.

UPDATE: I put the hoop in front of the house with a "FREE" sign on it, and it disappeared within a few days.

So I got a summons to go downtown yesterday and participate in jury duty for my first time. I was actually pretty excited about the opportunity and was hoping that I would be picked to be on the final jury. Unfortunately, I ended up being juror candidate 22 (out of 23 present), and they ended up only needing the first 6. Regardless, I chose to stay and watch the trial since it seemed kind of interesting and my boss already had the expectation that I'd be gone the whole day.

@#&$@#!!

Apparently a lady was riding her bicycle on the Town Lake Hike & Bike trail in February and almost ran into a loose dog on the trail. She shouted some profanity ("expletive deleted") at the dog's owner as she passed, and some nearby bicycle cops happened to hear it and gave her a citation for disorderly conduct by disturbing the peace. The cops testified that at the time she was ticketed, the woman admitted to shouting the profanity and apologized for it.

The jury ended up finding her unanimously not guilty, despite the absolutely horrible job that she did while representing herself and not actually providing any compelling arguments. The testimony of the two bicycle cops was basically insufficient to get the verdict.

(At the time of the ticket, she supposedly claimed to the police office that the profanity was part of a story she was telling to a friend she was bicycling with. But there was no exploration of why a profanity in a retold story would have been more appropriate in a public area, or why she changed her excuse to now being because a loose dog was in the path, nor why shouting a profanity at the dog's owner would have been more justifiable.)

If the jury had found her guilty, they could have fined her between $1 and $500.

My parents both retired a few months ago in December and have recently put their house up for sale, so that they can retire to Arizona. A few of my Austin friends (decibel45, dopplertx, snaxxx) got to see it in person when we went to New Zealand last year.

Part of the reason that my parents don't feel that the real estate market slump in California will have too much of an impact on their sale is the relatively unique nature of their house. It is a Japanese-inspired haiku house, which is a modern-day interpretation of a Japanese country house. It is supported entirely by long wooden poles that extend deep into the ground, and is made almost entirely out of redwood trees. My parents liked the design so much that they hired an architect to build it for them in 1981 on a carefully selected hillside in Pasadena, California. It would be impossible to build a house like it today in California due to recent construction regulations to reduce fire risk, plus the difficulty/expense of obtaining that much old-growth redwood.

Their realtors set up a little website with its own domain [1893kaweah.com] to host a description and some photos of it. My mom sent me some good details about the media coverage and open house interest:

"Our home was featured in the local Pasadena magazine as well as in the LA Times. The first open house had a lot of neighborhood people ... We had a couple serious parties. Our realtors (2 partners) were very surprised at the numbers showing up. The 1st [open house] had 175 coming through; our 2nd has about 100. It must have been a huge traffic jam since we got a phone call 1½ hr into the open house and the realtor sounded overwhelmed at the tremendous # of people going through the house!"

The house keeps itself very cool in the summer because of louvered windows that can open up along the entire bottom floor, and skylights and roof vents that open up on the second floor. All the hot air escapes at top vents and draws in cool air through the lower windows.

You can also see their house on Google Maps StreetView, though it appears that Google has mixed up some of the images if you move too far along the street. The realtor also has a bunch of photos on their website. I also have some of my own photos in my personal gallery. It's a little sad to think that the house I grew up in will soon belong to someone else though.

Finally after enough customer complaints Fry's Electronics now accepts American Express. I noticed the signs at the cashiers had changed when I stopped in last weekend at the Austin Fry's and the cashier confirmed it was true. A press release was put out just this week:
http://www.americanexpress.com/corp/pc/2008/frys.asp

It's my 30th birthday on Tuesday (Jan 15), but I was thinking of having a group dinner on another night instead. How does 7pm at Cheesecake Factory at the Arboretum on Saturday Jan 19 sound? Reply below so we can get a headcount.

On Friday night, I went and had dinner at Uncle Billy's BBQ and then went to see the band She Craves at Emo's Lounge. Then on Saturday we went to the McKinney Falls State Park and we did the 3 mile paved hike around the park. Next time I go I'll definitely want to try the other 3 mile unpaved hike they have. reanimated wrote a little more about it here and here.

On Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, I did a bit of electrical work on my car by installing an integrated XM Radio receiver into my Jeep. This was basically added on a hidden XM Receiver electrical box under the driver's seat with cabling that snakes up under the carpeting and into the back of my Pioneer stereo head unit. Even better is that it seems because the XM receiver I bought was factory refurbished, it is still activated and receiving radio content for free. Apparently the XM activation/deactivation signals are only transmitted occasionally for each Radio ID, so I may continue to get free service for a few weeks.

Sunday evening, snaxxx started moving some of her things into the Cowhouse, beginning mostly with her books. She'll be moving the bulk of her things next weekend.

Unfortunately, it seems that the commotion of going in and out of her car might have attracted some criminals, because in between car loads some vandal snuck into her car and my Jeep and looked for things to steal. The burglar must have been scared off as Snax was coming back her car, because my Jeep passenger door was left open with my car insurance paperwork scattered around. The only thing taken from my Jeep was less than a dollar in spare change in the cupholder (apparently ignoring my obsolete Garmin StreetPilot GPS). They similarly took a few dollars in cash and a digital camera from Snax's car, but seemingly not much else (also apparently ignoring her iPhone and iPod). The Austin Police were dispatched out and they took a crime report from us and managed to lift a few good fingerprints from Snax's car, so maybe something good will happen.

Maybe I'll try to get some infrared video cameras installed outside around the house. I had been playing with an open source Linux-based video surveillance package called ZoneMinder a year or so ago, but never really extended it to any permanently mounted cameras.

Over the Christmas holiday I went back to visit my parents in Pasadena again. We had the usual big group dinner at one of my aunt's houses with all of the other aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Then from Dec 26-28, I went to Las Vegas with a smaller group (Aunt Shirley, Uncle Chuck, and my 4 oldest cousins) to see the Cirque du Soleil: Beatles Love show [wikipedia] and do some gambling. The Cirque du Soleil show was great and incorporated lots of songs by the Beatles with great choreography and a fair bit of acrobatics. It didn't seem to have quite as much of the acrobatics as I think other Cirque du Soleil shows are known for, but it was still quite enjoyable.

While I was there, I also went on my own into the Star Trek: The Experience [wikipedia], saw the museum, the two attractions (Borg and Klingons), and brought back some souvenirs (including a Tribble). The recreation of the ship interiors there were neat to see up close--the ride and experience is kind of similar to the Star Tours at Disneyland.

Although I did a bit of gambling, I didn't really gain or lose very much. I mostly played Video Poker and some of the slot machines. I did much better with video poker than the slots, especially after finding this Wizard of Odds: Video Poker website. A $20 bill lasted me 2 or 3 hours in the quarter Video Poker machines with the optimal strategy.

My dad and mom had just retired, so there was also a big retirement/birthday party for my mom, which was pretty exciting. My parents are also in the process of selling their home in Pasadena, so I was helping with some of the packing and furniture moving to help stage the house for its sale. It's too bad that they'll have to sell such a neat house at a low point in the housing market though.