I suppose it was just a matter of time... 

http://www.mizpee.com/

Found via uncov.

Bighomepic

We had a great turnout at the latest PostgreSQL users group meetup -- around 35 people showed. (Oh and not the group of stylish "Hi5 folk" you see to the right :)

Ram and I went over the PostgreSQL based DB architecture we use at Hi5 after the obligatory pizza feed.  Quite an interesting crowd, some newbies, and some old hands.

My best line of the night was in response to a question asking us when we were going to use a specific feature -- my answer was that there were more people in the room than there were employees at Hi5.  :)

The complete presentation is online for the curious.

#hi5 #postgres #postgresql

#vox

I see that Hi5 made the list of Privacy International as posing a substantial threat to users' privacy.  I find that their methodology is extremely suspect.  I can't spot any consistency in the way they treat sites.

#hi5 #phishing #privacyinternational #security

It's been a lot of work, but Hi5 has now broken into the Alexa top 10, only 6 months ago we were treading water in the mid 40s.  We're quickly gaining on Orkut with Facebook nipping at our heels.

Graph

#alexa #hi5 #vox

funny

http://www.secretgeek.net/littlefishes_.asp

So, now the military is blocking a bunch of sites.

Idiots.  They should know that people will only gravitate to other services over time, then they'll have to ban those too...

Finally a Philz in SOMA. At 4th & Berry good coffee is now convenient to 6A HQ and Mission Bay park. Perfect for morning Dog walks!

Philz Returnz

#mobile #vox

Hi5 happy hour!

Update: The bar is DäDä, at 2nd and Mission.  The sculpture you see below is comprised of a printed circuit boards.

DaDa

#mobile #vox

14 kW of new servers, cables as big as three fingers!

Photo_040607_003

That's me and Tommy in an ad for the Hook and Go smart cart in Dwell magazine.

Dog Star

#mobile

#vox

#mobile

Another year, another April Fools birthday. This year was better than most, as it included plenty of tech upgrades for the home, a relaxing weekend and filing taxes with an $11 refund. It was all capped off with a splendid meal at Dosa. Highly recommended!

37

#mobile #vox

#kitty #luxxury #redhat #vox

#bayxp

Eadweard James Muybridge

#mobile #vox

There is no try, only do....

Yoda Closeup

#mobile #vox

At Lucasfilm's campus in the presidio.

Yoda

#mobile #vox

Drinks with hi5 folks.

John Colins

#mobile #vox

At the South Beach Cafe.

The Fondue will come soon...

#mobile #vox

So about 2 months ago I took the plunge and reorganized my time management around in the form of David Allen's Getting Things Done.  I had seen the 43 Folders blog way back when, and I had toyed with the idea, but I was so mired in work not to mention the 1200 messages in my inbox find time to make a lasting change.

Well, I finally did it and oh boy does it feel good.  All inboxes down to single digits, a consolidated todo list with context and other information, and squeezing in all those little tasks that used to stress me out.

The best part of this, and probably the only reason I was successful was some insanely great software called Thinking Rock.  It's a cross-platform Java App that implements GTD to the letter.  It's so much better than shoehorning GTD concepts into Outlook or Palm, which aren't really set up for them.

The best thing is there are no priorities in this system.  You only care about Context (where you do something) and what the next action is for a given project.  It really helps me stay on top of things and keep my head clear.  Plus it exposed me to pocketmods, which are foldup sheets of paper that substitute for a PDA.  So now I've got my little scraps of paper to carry around, and all my thinking rock software on a USB key and I'm very happy.

I just wish I had taken the plunge into GTD years and years ago.  (Of course if I could time travel I'd send this software along with a pallet of Red Bull to myself in college :)

Speaking of midwest college days -- the Thinking Rock name does remind me of a certain beer flavored water:

Rr

#gtd #thinkingrock #vox

Even better than the "Hatch Eats Kittens" ad Patty Posted: Sock Puppet ads for District 6 in San Francisco!

#d6 #politics #vox

If you're lucky you might spot a peregrine falcon in South Park.  Sadly the camera-phone doesn't have a zoom so this stock photo will have to suffice.

Peregrine Falcon on Sandstone

After getting out of our car to walk Tommy someone was pointing behind us.  There he was, sitting in a nest, with a stream of feathers from his early morning breakfast littered below.  About 10 yards away a dead rat sat in the street -- desert?

#vox

Image_26.jpg

Results of our November Infrastructure Sprint planning.  Total of 75 points in our backlog for the next 18 days.  This planning process feels a little awkward at first, but then it just clicks and seems natural.

#indexcards #sprint #xp #vox

I know that many folks in my vox neighborhood are registered to vote in District 6.  If you are I'd recommend that you give your vote to Rob Black orand Matt Drake and not mark any portion of the ballot for Chris Daly.

• Chris Daly - faux blog on the taxpayer's dime, weird blog on the campaign site (only comments on the current entry?  huh?)
  
• Rob Black - Hasn't updated since August, uses ... Wordpress.
• Matt Drake - Most prolific of the bunch on his Blogspot blog.

#chrisdaly #district6 #mattdrake #politics #robblack #vote

Hyperic is quite nice.  Have a look at this built-in that can alert and graph commits per second.

MetricChart

#hyperic #vox

Felix da Housecat

#hi5 #housecat #vox

Friday 2:40 AM. 

• The Dog barks, wakes up Julie. 
• Odd noises from outside.
• Julie wakes me up.
• Look out the window, looks like someone is trying to start their car
• A few minutes pass, another look reveals the rear window is broken
• Call Police
• Continue to Watch suspect try to hot-wire the car.
• Suspect notices me, looks up and gives me the finger.
• I step away from the window.
• Commotion
• Look out to see a plainclothes policemen tackle one suspect and an unmarked car chase down another down a one way street.  They catch them. Response time was less than 5 minutes.
  
• I go down to the scene.
• On the ground, a gun and a screwdriver.
• Three police cars, one unmarked car.
• Three undercover cops, with the badge on a necklace.
• Officer arrives with a digital camera, must be about 8 years old, it stores the photos on a floppy disk.
• The owners of the car come by, they had the window replaced only last week and start exclaming about the "Pistola".
• Give my statement.
• Watch.
• "Is that heroin..."  -- "Nah it's crack and meth".
• Another car comes by with a box to take the evidence away.
  
• I thank the police and head upstairs.

#truecrime

I can't believe it myself, Paul leaving Six Apart? Yes, it's true -- I've accepted an offer to be Hi5's Architect.

You can't fathom how much I will miss Six Apart -- the smart people, the positive dynamic environment, the technology and vision. I'm proud of what we've accomplished together and hope that my contributions have a lasting legacy beyond my final day, October 20th.

It sure has been a wild ride. Hard to believe it, but when I arrived TypePad was in the terrible twos - 2 app servers, 2 web servers, 2 Postgres 7.3beta databases, and (oh my) 2 SnapServers. Linux Kernel 2.6.5 had just been released and we were pushing a little over 10Mbps of traffic. Since then we've scaled up beyond belief while overcoming all sorts of obstacles. We've seen many new Typepad Stacks, two colo moves, three new ISPs, three new versions of Postgres, and dozens of software pushes all while building up great Engineering and Ops organizations to care and tend it all.

My immediate plans are to wrap up all of the loose ends while pushing forward on one last hurrah -- finishing up a simple version of Typepad and Mogile integration. If there's unfinished business or you want a brain dump of anything please let me know so we can take care of this in the next week and a half.

Don't forget to join me for a very special FooBar on October 20th to reminisce about all the great success we've shared over the past two and a half years.

After that... well, let's try to keep in touch.

I'll do my best to blog more on my Vox Blog, my LiveJournal, and my new experimental Typepad Blog. You can email me at [email protected].

You can also find me at the following places

• Hi5 Profile
• LinkedIn Profile
• LastFM Profile
• Friendster Profile (rarely used)

Thanks again for everything!

Paul

I can't believe it myself, Paul leaving Six Apart?  Yes, it's true -- I've accepted an offer to be Hi5's Architect.

You can't fathom how much I will miss Six Apart -- the smart people, the positive dynamic environment, the technology and vision.  I'm proud of what we've accomplished together and hope that my contributions have a lasting legacy beyond my final day, October 20th.

It sure has been a wild ride.  Hard to believe it, but when I arrived TypePad was in the terrible twos - 2 app servers, 2 web servers, 2 Postgres 7.3beta databases, and (oh my) 2 SnapServers. Linux Kernel 2.6.5 had just been released and we were pushing a little over 10Mbps of traffic.  Since then we've scaled up beyond belief while overcoming
all sorts of obstacles.  We've seen many new Typepad Stacks, two colo moves, three new ISPs, three new versions of Postgres, and dozens of software pushes all while building up great Engineering and Ops organizations to care and tend it all.

My immediate plans are to wrap up all of the loose ends while pushing forward on one last hurrah -- finishing up a simple version of Typepad and Mogile integration.  If there's unfinished business or you want a brain dump of anything please let me know so we can take care of this in the next week and a half.

Don't forget to join me for a very special FooBar on October 20th to reminisce about all the great success we've shared over the past two and a half years.

After that...  well, let's try to keep in touch.

I'll do my best to blog more on my Vox Blog, my LiveJournal, and my new experimental Typepad Blog.  You can email me at [email protected].

You can also find me at the following places:

• LinkedIn Profile
• Hi5 Profile
• LastFM
• Friendster Profile
  

Thanks again for everything!

Paul

Only perl geeks will get this one.....

TT-mobile

#tmobile #templatetoolkit #vox

Slatch

#sleestacks #vox

Thanks to all the folks who looked after things while I was out.

Image(240)

#roadtrip #vacation #vox

Lutefisk

This fine item was found at the Mantorville Marigold Days flea market.

For the non-scandinavians out there lutefisk is cod soaked in lye and generally smells as bad as it sounds.

#fleamarket #lutefisk #vox

finally made it here..  tired.

Made it into Cheyenne with pit-stops in Salt Lake City and Rock Springs, WY.  Over 800 Miles.

I-80 construction is annoying

Got my first speeding ticket  -- ever.  NV state trooper nabbed me doing 89 in a 75.  He was decent enough to write it up for 80.

The signs in the Salt Lake Desert/Salt Flats about Drowsy Driving were classic.

Salt Lake City was clean and tidy, very green and seemingly devoid of people.  Maybe they overbuilt during the Winter Olympics and haven't filled it in yet?

Rock Springs is in the center of mining, and chemical country.  Drove through looking for something to eat.  Decided against it since no non-meat options were forthcoming.  Popped into the Starbucks there, found out it would open in 2 weeks...  Walked the dog in the remains of the old downtown, long since killed by WalMart.  It's a depressing collection of strip clubs, and cheap storefronts for local services (karate, nails, haircuts, etc.)

Now in Cheyenne at a place at the edge of town.  Trains going by now and again.   Need to get to sleep so we can make the final 850 mile leg through Nebraska and Iowa....

#cheyenne #roadtrip #rocksprings #saltlakecity #speeding

So, we set out for Minnesota today.  I-80 all the way to Iowa and then hang a left on I-35.  Easy, right?  Nah..

Due to navigational error and rush hour traffic in Sacramento we ended up on highway 50 to Tahoe.  Beautiful drive, but well, slow.  That and some confusion later and we were headed back towards Nevada by way of Tahoe City and Carson City.

That ate into our time a lot, so we only made it as far as Winimucca, Nevada.   Another railroad town along the heavily trucked I-80 and the Southern Pacific Railroad.

[Note - - Writing this blog post one day after -- was too tired before.]

#i80 #roadtrip #winimucca

We had our dog Tommy photographed by Amanda Jones.  She's terrific and I'm very happy with the few glimpses I got of the images as they came off the digital camera.  Here's a photo of the happy puppy shot by former Six Aparter Matt Peterson:

Tommy

Turns out Amanda is publishing a new book and wants to use one of the photos.  It's coming out in March.  How cool is that?

A Breed Apart: A Celebration of the New American Mutt

Amanda Jones

#amandajones #dog #photography #tommy #vox

BayXP (The Bay Area Extreme Programming Group) had a small meeting at the offices of ThoughtWorks here in San Francisco.  The topic was interesting things learned at the Agile 2006 conference.

I found a number of items to add to my reading list, Including Refactoring Databases and Working Effectively with Legacy Code.  (See Links below)

Topics of discussion from the meeting included

• Coding Dojo - how to get hang of test-first development and Pair programming.
• A lot of talk about how Rails stacks up against upteen different Java Frameworks.
• The TDD Pair Programming Game is an interesting way of pairing that seems to make sense.  It's like a dance.  I write a failing test, you implement, then I refactor, then you write a test, etc.
• The best name for a talk that I've seen in a long time was Crushing Fear Under the Iron Heel of Action.  It explored how to deal with team dynamics in an Agile environment, mostly by saying "What's the worst thing that can happen". 
• Found out about a web site called Developer Testing.  Another thing to add to the RSS reader...
• There was a short talk about Code Debt.  Some people are surmising that Code Debt should be publicly disclosed in a companies SEC S4 forms via Sarbanes-Oxley.  One interesting quote was that code is an asset and you should maintain that asset properly because assets "increase the means of production".  If you don't maintain code properly and use correct process your software becomes a liability.  (Or course that begs the question of who defines the Generally Acceptable Coding Practices (GACP!)

Working Effectively with Legacy Code

Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design (Addison Wesley Signature Series)

#agile #bayxp #extremeprogramming #vox

I was unfortunate enough to miss Kent Beck, one of the founders of the Extreme Programming  speak recently here in San Francisco.

He asked "when was the last time you were comfortable in your skin as a programmer? ...and when did you last have that feeling at work?.  "  As usual Kent has hit upon some interesting psychology that really makes sense. 

Here's part 1 of 8.  If there's interest I'll  post the other 7 segments. (Or you can find these at the Agitar website and some of it's also posted on YouTube..)

Kent_beck_01

#easeatwork #kentbeck #xp #vox

So Julie found these very snazzy shoes in Japan, however the American counterpart to this company can't seem to order them for us.  The web site is at http://www.atmos-tokyo.com/ubiq/iliscvs_ppl_re.html  I stumbled throught the Japanese purchase forms, but it appears that this company is only set up to do local deliveries.

I'm looking for a size 24cm purple-esque as pictured below...  Contact me at [email protected] if you can help me out.

Ubiq

#gift #japan #purple #shoes #ubiq

I'm not one to share too much or go off writing long expositions, but sometimes events just do that to you.. 
My visit to the emergency room at St. Francis Hospital was that type of event.

The Situation:  After finding a stabbing pain in my chest making it difficult to breath and impossible to drive,  Julie and I cabbed over to the closest emergency room:  St Francis at Pine and Hyde.  Right on the edge of San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood.  Of course if I'd been able to get an appointment within a reasonable amount of time with the clinic I'm at this could have been avoided, but that's another story.......

The Scene:  Baby faced doctor in clothes that look two sizes too big.  Panes of glass more at home in a check cashing establishment.  Scattering of beat up vinyl chairs and a TV tuned to really awful ABC sitcoms.  Give my medical infomation, sign away my rights and waiting.  No clue how long.

Enter two tourists.  Overhear about their cable car incident, Palm frond stabbed in the eye.  Next up a crazy confused guy doesn't know why he's there and no one cares.  He's followed by a woman who has that prune-like junkie face with sunken eyes.  That stuff will artificially age you.

"According to Jim" is playing their Halloween episode.  It is truly awful.  The volume is way too loud.

Next, get triaged after about 30 minutes.  Nurse has no clue about what it is and no idea how long I will need to wait.

In the meantime orderlies are moving beds up and down the hallways containing people living on the lowest rungs of society.  It's a mystery why they're there, where they're going and where they came from.  Up and down the hallway.

The George Lopez show comes on.  It's laughtrack is ineffective.  Not funny.  A half hour passes.......

Some student types drop by.  They're talking excitably about star trek holodecks and a specific episode and what they'd change.  And oh wouldn't it be great to have a 24 hour holodeck you could just drop by whenever... And wasn't there an evil Data and a good Data in one of those episodes...

An woman comes by in a wheelchair pushed by her young daugher, her bleached hair contrasting with her ebony skin.  Parenting doesn't become her.

An alarm goes off.  No one blinks, no one moves.  I look at the blinking booping annunciator and notice the little man running from flames and ask if we should evacuate.  Blank stares from the people waiting and no movement from the staff.  We all wait....  It stops about five minutes later.

A "regular" comes in and says his teeth hurt like hell, and says hiya doing my friend, what brings you down here behind a pair of wide dilated eyes that just signal danger.

ABC's "The One" comes on.  Badly dyed facial hair and people who can't sing.  We walk out to the door, considering just leaving since I feel a little better.

Then major drama three people drop in.  A woman says she's been stabbed.  Another prunish faced woman and helps the woman in.  She has the suntan that comes from being forced to live outdoors and is weak.  The kid behind the glass gives her the papers, which she weakly tries to fill out. 

While she's doing that I get called in.  The Doc with the accent you can't quite place says that it's all just a muscle pull in my ribcage, and that it sure hurts doesn't it?  Gets the nurse to jab my butt full of painkiller, gives me a prescription for more and sends me on my way.  Try to ask him about the stabbed woman, but he just goes on about his business.  Then we're done.

The stabbed lady is sitting there, still vacant look on her face.  Dilated eyes guy with the dirty black hair rushes out saying "I mean nothing to these people" while an orderly tells him to not come back.  Bad signing and even worse commercials are still pounding out of the TV.
 
We leave and get a cab home.

#health #surreal #wellness

Rio

On a lark tuned in to the Duran Duran reunion concert tonight.  Now I haven't been to an arena sized rock concert for years and years...  Since when did it become customary to hold your cell-phone screen aloft instead of a lighter?

In any case, well worth watching, their music has held up pretty well.

Times of Romance

Oh and if you want something made in this decade that's, well Duran Duran like, check out the Bay Area's own, The Lovemakers.

#duranduran #lovemakers #music #vox

I have to say that Philz is now the winner in the "best coffee in san francisco" category.

I love Blue Bottle, buy their beans all the time.  Great place in Hayes Valley and of course their Iced New Orleans is killer.

Been to Ritual Coffee down on Valencia.  More iBooks than the Apple store and a definite see and be seen hipster joint.  The pretty leaves on the Latte and the talented people behind the counter really make up for all that.  Oh and big props for any place that fills a Thermos with French Press as their default drip.

But forget all those since after one visit I'm a Philz fan.  Been past their location on 24th and Folsom a number of times, but never visited until I walked in to their new 18th and Church location.  Has all the things one likes about a coffee shop.  Comfy? check.  Wifi? check.   Exotic sweet creamy light and fluffly individually brewed coffee better than anything an espresso machine can dole out? quadruple check with a garnish of fresh mint!

So you tell me, got anything better?

#coffee

Why 10,000 girl-power text messages, of course *snark*

#freemoney #qotd #shoppingspree

Why that would have to be Manowar's "Fighting the World"

Who could ever forget "Blow your Speakers" :-P

#embarrassingmusic #music #qotd

Dabbawallas in Action

Join me this thursday at 4pm for yet another Six Apart engineering talk entitled:

Explore the fun and tortuous journey of a web request. Starting from the click on a link across the net to the deepest backend server and back to a page displayed on your screen.

We'll look at the latest state of the art in Cache control headers, caching proxies, accelerators, content distribution networks (like Akamai), Keynote metrics and more!

Included in this weeks presentation is a short film clip about how the Internet resembles the six-sigma quality dabbawallas of Mumbai.

#caching #talks #vox

Voyagers

#cancelledshow #qotd #television #tv

So mugshot is now out: http://www.mugshot.org/

It appears quite interesting in how it integrates with the desktop environment. See the ArsTechnica review for more info.

I'll likely get access to this soon, have to talk to the old Red Hat Peeps asap...

#livejournal

I blogged this back in march.  Now that youtube links work we can add this directly...

LA County Fair

#vox