I finally got around to posting my OSCON 2010 attendee profile.

I wrote:

I work as a database administrator in a global team looking after a large financial institution’s relational database plant. For better or worse, this plant is 100% COTS; we’ll see what I can do to change that. While database administration in our group is awesome (computing + adrenaline = fun), I most enjoy the time spent writing internal tools in Perl and C, from compiled plugins for DB2 to automation solutions, and analyzing system faults in Linux. Evangelizing and teaching new trends, technologies, and best practices to my group is as important and enjoyable as the code I write, though. I love the reaction I get from disciples who finally realize and understand the power of git and zsh.

Never before today did I notice the great logo on git-scm.com:

Nor can I find any reason why that is the way it is, but it is most certainly appreciated.

The Julia Necklace

from “Geek Chic | A Matter of Fractals” by Sandra Ballentine in the New York Times. Made by Boucheron.

See Wikipedia’s Julia set article.

To play off of the recent meme over on Planet Ubuntu, I’d like to reiterate how awesome my ISP, Natural Wireless, is:

My new daydream for my future. Maybe I should start wearing sweater vests.

By no means an authoritative or ranked list.

1. Learning Perl (by reading some random guy’s series of emails, and subsequently by memorizing Programming Perl, my bible) – I learned Perl during college for a job I wasn’t really qualified for. Knowledge of Perl has opened more doors than I can imagine.
2. Brooks Brothers No-Iron Pants and Shirts – I’m a huge fan of these for work clothing. I spend zero minutes a week ironing.
3. My new Dahon mu p8 folding bike – since I bought it, I haven’t been on a subway and have never been more mobile. Life just feels better when biking every day.
4. Kinesis’ Advantage keyboard and Logitech’s Trackman Wheel mouse – For a while, I was bringing my work Kinesis home on weekends. Now, I have the pair both at work and at home because I love the setup so much.
5. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson – I will never think of Alan Turing or Pearl Harbor in the same way. (Thanks Brendan!)
6. GNU Screen, Mutt, and Ratpoison – While I’ve used GNU screen for its detach/attach feature when doing Gentoo compiles in my adolescence, I started seriously using Screen seriously about 1.5 years ago. Discovering hardstatus was the key to using it as a constant tool. Mutt is just how email should be. Ratpoison harmoniously unifies the world and throws out the extra junk one’s computing experience doesn’t need, especially when living in only Firefox, Mutt, and Vim.
7. Being on the right subway platform at the right time – Ah circumstance.
8. Google Maps and Reader – I recently didn’t have a phone for a few weeks and realized how lost I can become. Reader has become my de facto news source and an activity with with I begin and end my day.
9. Post-hardcore music – As with all music I like, I hated it at first, but have become devoted to it (for better or worse).
10. Having a kitchen timer in the shower – I really like taking long showers, like most people, but it is not conducive to either time or energy efficiency. Having a timer in the shower has vastly cut my shower time down. Admittedly, I’ve increased it to 4.5 minutes instead of just 4, but it still beats the national shower time of 8 minutes.

I’ll come up with more another day.

Wait, what?

My old friend Tony has it right when he says:

Some commentators have suggested he straightforwardly implied that Palin was a pig. Which would be insulting, but doesn’t sound sexist to me. A more subtle (although more sensible) jab would be the following implied argument: 1. A pig with lipstick is still a pig 2. Palin (according to her acceptance speech) is a pitbull with lipstick 3. Palin is still a pitbull That’s arguably unfavorable, except that Palin made the comparison herself.

I recently attended a talk by Werner Vogels, the CTO of Amazon.com, where he opened with:

I like to say that I am just a sysadmin for a little bookshop in Seattle.

Some bookshop!

His blog is pretty cool and strongly shows that he’s a really bright computer scientist.

1. The fact that I have two tickets to the New Kids on the Block show at MSG.
2. The fact that Congress decided corporate lobbyists with money are more important than our civil liberties by voting for telecom immunity and expansion of domestic spying. (Though, there is a snuggly bear who tells me it is a good thing. I don’t trust snuggly bears as bears have claws).
3. The fact that Barack Obama, “the harbinger of government change”, reversed his previous stance by voting for the corporate lobbyists with money. He refused to stand up to them and do the right thing, making him no different from any other politician. I would have loved for him to champion support against this bill, I would have settled for his individual vote against it, but I cannot accept his vote for it.
4. The fact that both Senators Schumer and Clinton of New York voted against this telco amnesty bill. At least they had the guts to stand up to the Bush administration.

End result?

Epic fail.