Go Home Facebook, You’re Drunk…

I’m freshly out of “facebook jail” about a thirty minutes ago. I haven’t been able to post, like, or comment on Facebook for three days. What heinous crime did I commit? Well, according to Facebook, I violated their community standards, specifically I engaged in “hate speech.”

I would imagine that most of you would be surprised. I don’t really participate in politics or political discussions, either in real life, or online. Why? I have always believed that a true key to a peaceful life and a polite society is to not discuss politics or religion. These are highly divisive topics. Likely over ninety percent of human conflicts have hinged on these topics, and by extension most of the death and destruction throughout human history. I have political and religious beliefs, but none of you know what they are because I keep them to myself. The world would be a better place if most folks lived this way. Sure, I vote, but nothing I see on Facebook is going to change how I vote, and I’m not so foolish as to believe I can influence how anyone else votes. So I don’t even participate in online political discussion.

So what did I do on Facebook that landed me in “hate speech” jail?

As some of you know, I worked at Facebook from 2010 until 2015. I helped build, and for a while managed Facebook’s very first self-built datacenter in Prineville, Oregon. Along the way I helped select and train the staff hired to build several subsequent datacenters, namely Forest City, NC, Lulea, Sweden, and Altoona, Iowa. I’ve remained friends with several of these folks, including a Swede named Daniel. Daniel and his family came to Oregon in early 2013, and we discovered that we shared some passions, namely datacenters, mechanical things, ice hockey, and skiing. I make silly comments on his posts now and then, including three days ago when he posted a photo of his lawn, covered in Canada geese:

Geese on Daniel's lawn

If you look closely you can see that I commented “Damn Canadians!”

After I posted that, I clicked on some other thing in my newsfeed (a video from the NHL) and it was interrupted a few seconds in by a pop-up box that said that I had violated FB’s community standards around “hate speech”… I took a screen shot of that, bounced back to Daniel’s goose pic and posted that as a comment figuring it would be even funnier than my original comment. It worked.

I then went on to scroll through my newsfeed of hockey stuff, car stuff, and friends’ posts. Within less than a minute however I was barraged by the automated Facebook AI Thought Police, who wanted to inform me of my (few, if any) rights and that I was going to be put in FB Jail for my clear crime against humanity. I dismissed the dialog box barrage as best I could and switched from my smartphone to my laptop as I know from experience that FB’s mobile UI is a suboptimal place for serious business (such as making jokes about birds.) I tried to appeal, but was only met with vague errors:

Unhelpful

I really enjoyed my time working at Facebook (except the last 100 days, which were terrible, but a story for another time) and one of the things I appreciated about it was the level of focus evident at every level of the company. It was only 1500 people when I joined in 2010, and FB had just passed the 500 million active users mark. The impact of 1500 dedicated people building infrastructure to support half a billion users was an astounding thing to consider. I often described working at FB as the ultimate embodiment of Adam Smith’s concept of the division of labor: by hiring people for very specific skills and leveraging those skills as much as possible, a very few could create and maintain systems used by hundreds of millions, if not billions of people.

Less than a year after I joined, Facebook was faced with a true existential threat: Google, a company over 10X our size, was launching their own social network, “Google+”. I happened to be in Palo Alto at FB HQ the week it was revealed and our CEO, Mark Zuckerberg called an all-hands meeting. He described how the company had faced these challenges in the past, when the nascent social network business was a cluttered field, and the efforts that were successful in growing FB to meet those challenges each time. But Google was another thing entirely. They had 10X the staff, and rumor had it that they had more engineers dedicated to G+ than FB had people. Google’s infrastructure was well over 10X ours at the time as well. They had a global fleet of datacenters with likely more than a million servers, perhaps more than two million. Facebook had two leased wholesale datacenter groups in the Bay Area and Northern Virginia, and two self-built datacenter campuses, one that had just come online a couple of months before (and still being built), and another under construction and likely not to go live for many months. Server count was still well under an eighth of Google’s. Clearly Google had a huge leg up in terms of ability, and all FB had on our side was momentum.

Zuck outlined the plan for how we were going to counter that threat, finished with a story from Roman history, and a final exhortation: “Please guys: Don’t fuck this up!”

We, as a company, didn’t fuck that up, as Google+ sits now in the dustbin of history, but I’m telling you Facebook is fucking things up today. Not big things, but small ones that erode user trust. Such as using an algorithm to detect and take action on “hate speech” that fails to understand context, such as a funny comment about birds. But even more so when the user-prompted process to correct the error also utterly fails.

Oddly, I have avenues available to me that the vast majority of FB users can’t imagine. I used to work there and know plenty of people who still do. I reached out to several to try and sort this out, but ultimately none of them could spring me from FB Jail. So I had to wait until my sentence was up.

The one thing everyone who is still working there tells me is: “It isn’t like it was… it is much worse.” The company is now tens of thousands of employees. It is cursed by a complete lack of existential threats, and huge revenues. Why is this situation a curse? It deprives them of any real need to care. It deprives them of that focus that made it initially successful. Facebook will never truly address their real problems until they either start losing lots of money, or something comes along that truly poses them a threat to their existence. Meanwhile, they’re just stumbling, unfocused, from mistake to mistake without any corrective measure being taken, because their mistakes don’t hurt them. They only hurt their users.

Zuck, you are fucking up.

2020 Lewis & Clark Rally: Day One.

The car started fine this morning. That’s always a good way to start the day.

I knew the rally would be odd, given the pandemic, as so many aspects would change due to the requirement of “social distancing”… for example the rally check-in last night was a drive-through affair, rather than the usual cocktail party at the exotic car dealer. They did have an impromptu gathering, but it was in a freeway rest area off of I-5. We showed up and applied our rally number decal but left soon afterward. Our hotel room literally overlooks the rally start point, so we waited until very close to the last minute to head over. They had already been handing out rally route books before we showed up.

Route Book in hand.

We’re literally the last car in the TSD competition group, so the tour cars were leaving as we arrive for “breakfast” and last minute prep. We depart and head off on a freeway circumnavigation of the Portland metro area for an odometer calibration transit.

Leaving Ron Tonkin Grand Tourismo at the start.

Oddly, we’re heading northwest down the Columbia River which is the opposite direction of our destination, but that’s rallying for you.

The first regularity immediately separates the field as we see several cars clearly off-course. Stew and I don’t make any navigational errors but who’s to say how we’re doing time-wise (as it turns out, 34 seconds early).

On the second regularity we do make one wrong turn, but recover swiftly. (5 seconds late)

On the third stage we feel like we are doing really well (and are proven correct; 1 second early).

The fourth stage is REALLY difficult in terms of road conditions, with an average speed of 39 MPH but with a VERY rough road, where I’m dodging potholes and frost heaves while climbing and descending outrageous hills. (4 seconds early).

Lunch is at the site of the former Trojan Nuclear Power plant, which felt odd…

After lunch we have a transit that takes us over the Columbia at Longview, WA where I find a gas station that has non-Ethanol premium, and even a pump for 110 Octane Leaded fuel (if I had the E-type I’d be buying that!)

On the fifth stage I somehow find myself right up behind the car ahead of us, a ‘67 Mini Cooper and am convinced that they are late, rather than us being early. The reality is that I am wrong. (53 seconds early.)

On the next segment we are dead on, until we are suddenly stopped in “traffic” where a construction vehicle has blocked the road for what is clearly several minutes. Multiple rally cars are stopped dead in the road while this vehicle is navigating a very tight turn. Fortunately for us, it moves aside soon after we arrived, so we get underway again and I’m left trying to decide if it is worth it to try and calculate a time declaration for the segment. The thing is you have to make “decs” in 30 second increments and I think we are within that margin of error already. Sure enough the checkpoint is there just down the road and I decide to just keep going. (33 seconds late. Had I declared 30 seconds we’d have only had a 3 second penalty!)

The next segment feels off from the start. Again we catch up to the Mini, and I keep telling myself “run our own rally, don’t worry about others” but the whole time I have extreme doubt. (Somehow 1:08 early… facepalm).

The remaining segments are all backroads through the national forests around Mt. St. Helens. Deep forest. Winding roads. Minimal navigation. Just driving. There is a fair bit of traffic but the speeds are low, so I’m being “pushed” a bit by non-rally traffic. I pull over when I can to let them by. Lots of pothole and frost heave dodging in difficult lighting to round out the driving difficulty. (23 seconds early, and 3 seconds early subsequently).

A transit to the hotel traverses the very same roads that Christopher & I did in the 65E close to twenty years ago on our very first rally together (“The Run to the Gorge”)

View from the hotel in the Columbia Gorge
Provisional results. No podium finishes this year!

Hopefully we’ll do better tomorrow.

2020 Lewis & Clark Rally. Getting there.

Yes, I know I never finished last year’s story about the rally, sorry. We finished Third in Class (again, for a “ThreePeat”).

Now for this Pandemic Year things are different. Linda decided to skip it, and both my other family navigators passed as well, so I’m training a new Navigator, Stewart Ross (Linda’s kid, though hardly a kid as he’s in his twenties.) We’re driving the 320i again, as it is the most reliable of my vintage cars at the moment. I’ve taken it on several shake down drives this spring and it has performed flawlessly. The E24M has a bad power steering pump, and the 65E needs a float replaced in the SUs. Both items are on my to-do list.

Continue reading “2020 Lewis & Clark Rally. Getting there.”

Lewis & Clark Rally: First Day.

Photos soon!

We just arrived at the hotel at the end of Day One. We feel pretty confident about our performance today. We know we were quite a bit (up to twenty seconds) late for the first timing control of the first TSD stage… why? We are car #12 and it seems car#13 thought we were on THEIR minute. They were yelling at us that we were late when we start, despite the fact that according to our timing we are at the correct start time. Then, he pulls out right behind us and rides my rear bumper and then passes us. I keep saying to Linda, my Navigator “run our own event, not anyone else’s!” So we press on, regardless. Sure enough a while on down the road Car #13 starts slowing down and looking confused… of course while we are on course and on time, and there is nowhere to safely pass. He almost comes to a full stop, and I honk at them. They pull off and we get around, now at least 5–10 seconds behind. Then the Rally Gods smite is with a “local hillbilly traffic control”, meaning a local, driving a green f-150 who decides they are going to make sure we keep to the speed limit. The rally route speed are actually BELOW the posted limits, but I really need to get moving for about a mile to catch up to time. Every passing zone the F-150 speeds up to not allow me to pass, but then slows back down when I’m back behind them. So infuriating! They delay us about another ten or so seconds and sure enough, a checkpoint appears within a mile. Oh well.

On the next segment the car ahead of us (#11) leaves REALLY early. Like close to two minutes early, which, combined with the previous one where #13 was shouting that we are late cast us into deep doubt. Did I set up the clocks wrong? Am I a minute off? We furiously recalculate, and double check our numbers (while on route) and come to the conclusion we reach before: Run our own event, and disregard all the other cars!

The rest of the route (which compromise eleven total TSD Regularity segments) we drive pretty clean and on at least two regularity segments we are very close to zeroes on our route controls. We fell for NO traps, and stayed on-course all day.

Since we are driving the “Ur-3-Series BMW” (an E21, 320i) we decide to “theme it up” and dressed as “Yuppies”. For anyone who lived back in those days, the 3-series was as much a social statement in the 1980s as a Prius was in the early 2000s, or a Tesla is today. It pegged the driver as a “Yuppie” back then, so Linda & I dressed in period-correct Yuppie Clothes. I was in Izod shirts (yes, two of them at once!) and pleated chinos with Boat Shoes. Linda wore a denim skirt over white aerobic shoes and a polo shirt, along with big hair.

I even shaved off my beard, but left an 80s stache.

We should have provisional results soon, and I’ll post them and pictures after dinner.

2019 Lewis & Clark Rally: Registration and Reception.

The Rally Registration & Cocktail Reception is at Ron Tonkin Gran Tourismo in Wilsonville. We arrive a bit late due to traffic. The cars are a mix of familiar and new to us, and BMWs are aplenty! A pre-war BMW, a couple of 2002s (including a tii), our 320i, a couple of M5s as well. We sign the waivers, gather our Car #, which is “12”, our bag and a cocktail. Linda and I share a Margarita while we wander about and ogle cars, snack on nachos, and finally (miss)apply our car number.

2019 Lewis & Clark Rally: Getting There.

We drove over the mountains today, via Santiam Pass, after a late start. The weather was horrendous. Sheets of rain, which made driving hazardous to say the least. From the Cascade Crest all the way down to around 1k’ altitude it poured so hard the road was covered in flowing and standing water. I had to pull off and let quite a few cars pass us. This car (a BMW 320i) has never been very good on wet or icy roads. More to do with the tires than the car really. They’re great on dry, but terrible in conditions like this. Once we arrived in the Portland metro area it was the height of rush hour. This car is also terrible in traffic. I was pretty exhausted by the time we arrived at our friends house in Beaverton. Thankfully they greeted us with wine.

Forecast for the rally weekend is partly cloudy with little chance of rain.

What were they thinking?

Engineering Idiocy. I know I’m late to this particular party, but I had not encountered this until today. Several years ago, after picking us up at the Houston airport, Linda was riding in the rear seat of my father’s BMW 535i, and casually said “Charlie, I love your car. If you ever think about selling it, I’ll buy it from you.”

Long story short, we bought the car from my mom not long after he passed away last summer. We drove it home last autumn, where it spent most of the winter parked in my shop as it isn’t really an ideal winter car. For that we drive her old Subaru.

This 5-series is several years old, but has very low miles. We literally doubled the odometer driving it from Texas to Oregon. It is likely overdue for an oil change in time more than distance. I looked up the oil required and bought two large jugs of it yesterday. I had stocked up on filters from BavAuto (R.I.P.) soon after we bought it. I opened the hood in the shop to be presented with…

NO DIPSTICK!

I recall lots of complaints in Roundel (the BMWCCA magazine) about this issue back when BMW started doing this, but I didn’t give it much thought.

So I was sort of stuck. The owners manual doesn’t list the engine oil capacity(!) and everything BMW presents you with basically says “bring it to the dealer for oil changes”… grrr.

I’ve been changing my own oil since I was a teenager. It was the first thing I learned about automotive maintenance. For me it is almost a therapeutic action. It is good for the car, it is good for me. I drive away with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. But now I’m just confused.

Thankfully I have the Internet. The Internet tells me I need 6.5 Liters of oil for this engine. Typical of how I’ve always done this I’ll fill it a bit short of what should be “full” and then top it off in small increments to avoid overfilling the engine.

However without a dipstick, there is no way to actually do this. To measure the engine oil you have to be in the car and use the onboard computer. Not only that, the car has to be on level ground, engine on, and UP TO OPERATING TEMPERATURE. ????

This is sort of stupid. I let the oil drain out overnight. The engine is cold. In fact it got below freezing last night, so the engine is about as cold as it will ever be. I feel stupid starting a cold engine with at least a half a liter short of the correct amount of oil… then letting it idle for long enough to warm it up.

The dipstick is a perfectly adequate tool for this task. It takes seconds to measure oil levels with a dipstick, and it poses ZERO risk to the engine to use it. While I’m not really scared of damaging this car, doing this for the first time ever does make me feel… mild trepidation mixed with annoyance for some engineers in Munich.

So here I KNOW I shorted the amount by 500ml, so I expect the car to tell me to add that after I perform the check…

…and…

Now I’m REALLY annoyed. How can I trust this thing? It’s like those temperature gauges they program to stay right in the middle unless something really bad is happening. I know I’m 500ml short, but the car tells me “I’m at 100%” (note the lack of actual measuring units).

I guess I’m going to have to check often to see if it changes.

So happy that all the other engines I care for have dipsticks.