Being = Space x Action

You have new Picture Mail!

2006-11-27T22:38:00.000-05:00

Well...I guess go.blogger.com works. Neat.

Baby Rocks

2006-11-21T20:53:00.000-05:00

I just had to share. I spent like 45 minutes listening to all the song clips at Baby Rock Records. This is the coolest thing I've ever heard. And anyone with kids (and are late 20-, early 30-somethings) will love this stuff. The Tool album is fantastic. I bought four albums (The Cure, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, and Nirvana). Can't wait for the Pixies album...

Does this make me old?

Life is Good...seriously?

2006-11-20T09:54:00.000-05:00

It's been a year since my family and I made our way back to the US from our extended two year vacation (yeah, right) in Australia, and as one might imagine, there were quite a few new US fads that had transpired while we were away that looked very strange to us during our first month or so in late 2005. For example, the cars had gotten much, much bigger since we left in 2003 (or at least they seemed bigger), the no-carb diet cult had escalated their campaigning to a fever pitch, and Hardee's had transformed itself into some kind of hip establishment. But Australian television, which spends a great deal of its time broadcasting American culture and Americanized Austrlian culture into the homes of unsuspecting subscribers, did a pretty decent job of keeping us in the loop. I mean, we knew cars were getting bigger, we just didn't know how big, for example. But there is one particular pop culture fad that Aussie TV did not prepare us for, and for the last year I've found myself confused as to how this all started.

In short, I don't get the Life is Good stuff. It seems harmless enough, and unlike my usual response to popular culture I don't get (which is to hate and ridicule it), I feel pretty indifferent really. But I just don't understand how this brand has become so popular so fast. I first took notice when it seemed every third car had a very large "Life is Good" sticker of some sort prominently displayed on it. I saw so many of these things that I decided it must be religious or political in nature. Then one day I was sitting in a meeting and someone opened their laptop across the table from me. On the lid of the laptop was one of those big "Life is Good" stickers. And the owner of the laptop does not seem to be the overly political or religious type, so this turn of events made me rethink my theory. So then I asked the Interblag about "Life is Good", and Wikipedia gave me some good clues about why this brand is so popular. The company's charity work might explain why so many people are into the brand, but it seems the company concentrates mostly on charity work within the Boston area (or at least the festivals are held in Boston). Here in Raleigh, I doubted that the charity work had anything to do with the brand's popularity. And I confirmed this when I asked someone I knew that was wearing a "Life is Good" shirt why, exactly, he was into that brand. He explained that REI carried the brand, and he just liked the material. At this point I thought I had the mystery solved, since when I thought back to the kinds of people I recalled sporting the "Life is Good" brand nearly all of them seemed the REI-type. And REI is extremely popular here in Raleigh (being the wilderness and all), so this made sense. Case closed, right?

Wrong. Just today I happened to end up in traffic behind a new Hyundai Sonata driven by a very old couple with a massive "Life is Good" sticker in their rear window. Back to square one. I still don't get it.

Random shuffle: remixed

2006-10-09T09:00:00.000-04:00

So it appears my concerns about the randomness of the iPod's shuffle algorithm are all in my head. Fair enough. Thanks for letting me know.

Underoos (circa 1985)

2006-09-22T22:09:00.000-04:00

I so remember this commercial...

A Day of Explaining Things

2006-05-31T19:27:00.000-04:00

More booth duty today, and lots more interactions with the top notch general population at the Summit. And what an interesting day to be out in front of our enterprise customers...considering Mugshot's debut. Needless to say I had some explaining to do. I underestimated the difficulty finding the right words to properly describe the relevance of this grand social experiment in collaboration to the folks that stopped by to find out more. After some long pauses and deep thought, I was able to boil it down to this: Mugshot is how we teach the future generations about the power of collaboration - it's how we make the concepts and tenets of Open Source relevant to non-technologists; the masses if you will. And if that explanation didn't work I'd just say "It's for the kids, man. We did it for the kids!"

Luckily 108 was less of a challenge. Everyone seems to get it (except for the name), likes it, and thinks it's long overdue. I'm personally very interested in seeing the projects that make their home under 108. There's even been some crazy talk about my group (IT) taking one of our internal projects and opening it up for all to see on 108...

Nashvegas: working it

2006-05-30T23:34:00.000-04:00

As with all massively complex social events, there is always an army of dedicated men and women behind the scenes making it all happen. I've worked many shows for Red Hat over the last 7 years, but this is by far the largest undertaking I have witnessed this close up. Sara Jones and her crack events team is truly outstanding. Major Kudos!

I'm in Nashville this week to lend a hand with the Partner Expo (come by and see us in Tennessee Lobby A!) and as of this writing I'm closing out Day 2 with the team. Day 1 was mostly about getting to know the event team, walking this massive hotel to orientate ourselves, and cutting a record at Masterphonics. And don't ask to hear it; even ProTools couldn't save everyone's ears from bleeding. Day 2 was lots of physical labor getting the mountain of show materials distributed to the right partner booths in the Expo and spending some quality time with attendees as they arrived for registration.

And speaking of attendees, these folks are smart and way interesting! I learned more talking to them then they learned from me, which is not true of your typical show population. Usually they just want to make off with swag and could care less to actually engage in meaningful conversation. I met some amazing people today, and these are the folks paying to be here. I predict the next several days are going to be quite a learning experience for all of us.

Picasa on Linux

2006-05-27T08:55:00.000-04:00

Trying the "Blog This" feature. I had tried previous Picasa versions under WINE and they sort of worked. This version is very impressive...seemless even.

BTW, this photo is from Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.

Indian Auto Rickshaw: Mission Failed

2006-04-17T15:40:00.000-04:00

For those following the story, we were not able to acquire an auto rickshaw for our return trip, though we did hear back from a retailer of the said vehicle with the following:

Subject: Re: 11-04 Bajaj Autorickshaw 2S
Dear Sir,

We thank you for the interest shown in our company. Attached herewith are the specification of Bajaj Autorickshaw 2S we can offer.

Please note that our models are not certified by DoT (Department of Transport) of your country. Neither do they have an EU certificate or VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). They are only cleared by the ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India) for use on Indian roads. They either comply with Euro II norms or Bharat Stage - II (which is even more strict than Euro II norms).

We would not be able to help you out with DoT clearance of your country. Please let us know your current business and what field you are into. We can also offer you electric 2 wheelers (scooters) from INDIA if you are interested (Nice Cross-sell!)

Given below are the rates for Bajaj Autorickshaw 2S we can offer.

Models Rates / Unit

Bajaj Autorickshaw 2S US$ 2400.00

TERMS & CONDITIONS:-
1. Payment Terms: 25% Advance and Balance by Confirmed L/C payable in INDIA.

2. Minimum Order: 1 X 40' Container

3. Insurance: By buyer
4. Shipment: Within 2-3 weeks of receipt of Payment
5. From: Any Indian Port
6. Charges: All bank and other charges outside India on buyers account
7. Validity: 25th April, 2006

The above rates are for One unit, if you will order for container load than the rates differ.

Kindly confirm us your requirements with port of destination

and exact quantity enable us to quote.

And that's as close as we got to our rickshaw. Maybe next time.

Indian Auto Rickshaw: Mission Impossible?

2006-04-09T01:47:00.000-04:00

We're 7 days into our hiring adventure in Pune and the team has become completely obsessed with the auto rickshaws that populate the streets (look behind the cow)

We've decided we want to bring one (or two) back to HQ and use it for getting around the campus. But there are some logistical problems. Namely, I don't think we can check one (or two) of these on the plane. So, we've resorted to asking the candidates, as a closing question, how they would go about getting an auto rickshaw from India to the US at the lowest possible cost in the shortest possible time. So far, only one candidate has really come through for us (and he'll likely be rewarded with a job for his excellent answer ;) ). His solution? Take it apart and then ship it piece by piece back to the US. Johnny Cash style. Fewer customs problems, lower cost overall, and pretty fast. Of course we're hoping for other suggestions, but right now, this is the winner.

Back to Pune

2006-04-03T00:16:00.000-04:00

At 39,000 ft now, passing over Sarajevo after leaving Zurich bound for Mumbai. As you know, this is my second visit to the subcontinent, and this time I'm representing Global Information Services instead of Global Support Services. I'm happy that Pune is so strategic to both organizations, especially since this dual importance keeps me connected to the people there. This trip is all about growth - we are in serious need of some great developers. And over the next week and a half, it's wall to wall interviews with 30+ candidates from all over India. This trip also gives me a chance to spend some face to face time with my team, three of which I've never physically met yet. And then there's my good friend Bala that moved to Pune while I was still abroad, which means we've been flying past each other for nearly a year. It will be good to see him again. So the plan is to spend the bulk of our time in Pune and the last day in Mumbai meeting with Javed Tapia and the newly acquired Red Hat India crew. I remember the day we announced our Indian joint venture, and I was very pleased we finally formalized the relationship and made them officially part of the family.

Random shuffle

2006-01-26T13:36:00.000-05:00

I have always contested the randomness of the iPod's shuffle algorithm, but in the last two weeks I have noticed song sets that I just can't believe were selected randomly:

Set one:
Social Fools - Devo
They - Jem
Eleven - Primus

Set two:
Break - Fugazi
Break - Jurassic 5

Set one might not be as obviously non-random as set two. Set two's pretty obvious. Set one consists of three songs that carry the same lyrical theme. They even have strong similarities in the words used in certain lines. Look it up, you'll see. And no I don't think my iPod is capable of knowing this and selecting these songs, but it is weird. I have 5,745 songs in my Library as of this writing.

Web Analytics

2005-11-17T15:47:00.000-05:00

I've never spent a huge amount of time thinking about this subject, until this week. I've been sitting in a training session all week for some new analytics software we're considering, and suddenly the instructor starts talking about Google Analytics and how something free like that will surely never compete with a commercial, paid-for solution. I didn't even know Google was doing analytics. Somehow I missed the Urchin acquisition...

Anyway, it strikes me that the kind of language the instructor used about Google Analytics sounds almost exactly like the language the established Operating System vendors used to use when talking about Linux. So even the highest reaches of the software stack (web analytics being pretty far up there) are not immune to commoditization.

Fascinating...

The World Is Flat

2005-08-27T00:06:00.000-04:00

I love this quote from Thomas L. Freidman's The World Is Flat. It's very sad, but very true:

"In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears--and that is our problem."

I ran into her at computer camp...

2005-08-20T07:38:00.000-04:00

There's nothing quite like Norwegian geek rock. This little ditty is burning up the Australian air waves at the moment.

Gross

2005-06-14T18:43:00.000-04:00

Gross Here's the "river" outside the office.

A "few" shots of the kid

2005-06-12T08:31:00.000-04:00

There are approximately 1700 more in iPhoto I could subject you to, but I won't:

http://photos.yahoo.com/almethvin

The Subcontinent

2005-05-29T07:35:00.000-04:00

Thus concludes my first visit to India. I've seen some wonderful things and some disturbing things. The people being the wonderful part, the surroundings being the troublesome part. Pune is a city of 3 to 5 million people, depending on how you count it, and is considered the 3rd fastest growing BPO (offshore service) centers with the highest per capita income in the country. I only spent time in Pune, and I imagine as things go in India, this city is doing pretty well. But the street level situation is something I've never experienced before.

From the moment I first saw India out the windows of my Air India flight into Mumbai, my initial impression was one of a massive country that was at its height 30-50 years ago and has since fallen into to disrepair. Or more to the point, it's like India has been forgotten, left to decay. Of course I saw very modern and impressive business parks on the outskirts of Pune, which could have easily been located anywhere in the Western world. But the edges of everything here are a little fuzzy, a little off. Even the structures are strangely non-uniform, with uneven lines and unsubtle features. Once you've seen how construction occurs in India you quickly understand why. Literally, these buildings are built by hand with very little heavy equipment. No cranes, no lifts, just bamboo scaffolding and lots of manual lifting, concrete pouring, and welding. Buildings emerge one floor at a time, and very slowly. Same with bridges, roads, ditches...everything.

The food has been incredibly good. I've always liked Northern Indian cuisine (the Tikkas and the Tandooris), but I've never had the variety and freshness like this week. I'm also now a huge fan of the Thali style of dining: big ole plate that they keep piling food on until you make them stop, all your curries and sweets come in little dishes. Very nice.

Time to board a plane for Sydney.

Before you can shoot me the train will kill your Dad

2005-05-24T10:31:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure what the name of this movie is being shown on my flight, but you have to admit that line is a classic. I should have been on a flight to Bangalore at 7:50am this morning, but for some unknown reason departure was delayed for 2 hours, meaning I would miss my connection to Pune. And as luck would have it, that would be the last connection out of Bangalore to Pune today. So I'm off to Mumbai via Kuala Lumpur to catch (probably) the last connection to Pune. Air India isn't the nicest airline I've ever flown, but it's not at all what I expected. Ever seen The Golden Child with Eddie Murphy? The flight to Kathmandu was my mental image of any flight to India on an Indian airline. And I have been terribly disappointed.

I had dinner with Shane and Victoria last night at Cafe Iguana near Merchant's Court Hotel in Singapore. A little Mexican beer and conversation made for a really nice evening. We reflected on how the world is in desperate need of more Mexican people migrating to other
parts of the world - Asia in particular - and establishing proper Mexican restaurants. Everyone loves Mexican, but no one seems to do it quite right out here.

Fun with Extensions: Generic URL Creator

2005-05-11T22:38:00.000-04:00

So this one wasn't an obvious to me at first, but the Generic URL Creator is quite a handy little tool. I use it with the Thunderbird version shipped in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4. Why is it so handy, you ask? Observe:

I spend 98% of my day tracking customer issues through our various systems. That means that nearly every email I get contains things like Bugzilla numbers, Issue Tracker numbers, and the like. I get really tired of copy/pasting those little numbers into the various web-based tools. Especially since there's no standard way they get represented. Sometimes they're just the number itself, like 123456. Sometimes a kind soul will prepend it with something to tell me which system it comes from: IT123456 or BZ123456. But like I said, there's no standard so I get everything from BZ#123456 to BZ/123456, BZ-123456, "BZ 123456". Very annoying. And difficult to quick click, copy and paste since the click generally selects the whole "word". If only there was some way to teach the selection tool about regular expressions...and there in lies the power of GUC.

Here's one example of how I use it. I've added a customer Lookup of the form:

Menu Text:       Issue Tracker
Search Pattern:  (IT\#)?(/d+)
URL:             https://enterprise.redhat.com/issue-tracker/#2

Now I can double click something like IT123456 or IT#123456, or just 123456, right click, and there in my context menu is my Issue Tracker item. I select it, and magically the right thing happens over in Firefox.

Should I spend some time and perfect my regex to include other random seperators, with something like (IT.)?(/d+)? Sure I should. Will I? Who knows.

Lounge Act

2005-04-25T07:19:00.000-04:00

So usually the Qantas lounges are these really amazing, swank, well stocked places with WiFi access, nice comfy chairs, and generally quiet and professional travelers. Well I'm sitting in the Qantas lounge at LAX International terminal, and it sucks. So, so, so bad.

What's up with that? I mean, hello? International terminal? LAX? Qantas? Sounds like a winning combination. This lounge reminds me the Cathay Pacific lounge in Manila. Actually, that lounge was better than this lounge. Total insanity. I bet I can't go back to the Domestic terminal now either. I'm stuck in that limbo between the US and International airport terminals. If a war broke out right at this moment, or some weird new law was put into effect somehow changed the rules of transit between these terminals and the US (or any other country), I'd end up stuck here forever. Which wouldn't be so bad IF THE LOUNGE DIDN'T SUCK. Which is does.

On top of sucking, it's packed. Which makes any lounge awful. I was just in the DFW Admiral's Club. Now that's nice. Spacious, modern, very nice furniture. I mean I'm not asking a lot here. The furniture in here is like a really bad doctor's waiting room. A very poor doctor. Not a doctor with which I would be trusting my health.

Regardless, the important thing is I'm just ~15 hours from being home. And my gate is just one floor below me. And I have another hour or more sitting here in this stupid lounge.

So let's review. Good lounges:

Hong Kong International (QF)
Hong Kong International (Cathay)
Singapore International (QF)
DFW Domestic (AA)
Sydney International (QF)

Bad lounges:

LAX International (QF/JAL)
Manila International (Cathay)
Narita International (QF/JAL)

This is not a full list. I don't even remember some bad and good lounges.

The South truly is the Bible Belt!

2005-04-17T20:08:00.000-04:00

Call me crazy, but is everyone talking about Jesus and the Holy Spirit or is it just me? For the last two days, and as many Starbucks, I've found myself situated near either evangelical preachers or divinity students discussing religion openly like nobody's business. The nerve!
Aren't they taking this freedom of speech rot a bit far?

Seriously though, it is kind of strange to hear. Maybe it was always like this. I'm not sure. Since I've been away apparently there was some kind of major election, and a very different kind of special interest group flexed its considerable muscles and kept its number one fan in the White House. I of course immediately dismiss the power of this group and chalk it up the "evil old white men" theory that works so well in theory and practice. But maybe there's something more going on here...

Perhaps America simply has become more outwardly religious. I mean, it's a pretty religious place anyway, for the average person. I suppose the fear, uncertainty, and doubt of the last 4 years has manifested itself much like it did in the Dark Ages - people turn towards the comfort of religion in times of strife. And what's wrong with that? Nothing, for my perspective. What *is* wrong is when decisions are made on a national and global scale simply because the align with one's religious beliefs.

So back to Starbucks. Unfortunately it's hard for me, during the brief moments I overhear these conversations, to tell the difference between a truly faithful and devoted person that respects other perspectives and belief systems, and an absolute bigoted slug. I try not to think negative thoughts, but it's like an involuntary reaction. I suppose that's my problem, and not anyone else's...

Back in the USA

2005-04-16T17:57:00.000-04:00

Granted, I was here over Christmas, but we spent the entire time on the interstate driving from Raleigh to New Iberia, LA and back, so we didn't see much of Raleigh's street level changes. It's kind of crazy, how much can change in 2 years.

While driving down Wade Ave on my way in from the airport I notice this massive, looming apartment building sitting right on the road. Not the best design decision in the world mind you, with Wade being the busy busy street it is.

And then, once I get downtown, there's the enormous Fayetteville St Mall rework. So check this out (a bit of back story): Fayetteville St used to be just that, a street. And then someone decided it should be converted into one of those new fangled "superblocks" they'd read so much about. A thriving commercial center quickly became a big dead space in the middle of the city. Now all that is being reversed, and Fayetteville St will once again be...a street. For more on superblocks, read Eric Darton's Divided We Stand. A good read, pre-9/11, that is very spooky when read post-9/11.

Time to go eat some more Taco Bell, Salsa Fresh, and Chili's...man I miss that stuff!

The Ides of March

2005-03-04T09:32:00.000-05:00

I like March. Lots of birthdays for people close to me, the beginning of my company's fiscal year, and generally a nice month.