life – Page 35 – chuck.goolsbee.org

ski trip

a rest stop 1/3rd the way down Blackcomb Mountain

A few weeks ago we spent a long weekend up at Whistler, BC. It was Nick’s Spring Break, which happens too late in the year for us to visit my parents in Colorado (their snow is usually bad, or gone by then.) This year one of Sue’s law practice clients traded her some time in a condo in Whistler as partial payment, so we took advantage of it. The snow was fantastic, and we had three sunny days of skiing, and one very cloudy one. Nick & I skied together for two days… Sue’s back gave her trouble so she could not ski as much.

If you are a skier, and have never been to Whistler, make a point to do so before too long. After the 2010 winter Olympics the secret will be out and it will likely be too expensive, and too crowded.

The two mountains there are truly HUGE. The runs are all phenomenally long. The really long runs in the Rockies are merely “average” here. I’ve never skied on the east coast but the runs there must be mere hops compared to the leg-busting monsters on Whistler & Blackcomb. This photo was taken about 1/3rd the way down the far run on Blackcomb’s “skier’s right”… meaning Blackcomb Glacier, and down to the top of the Gondola.

Here is a trail map for reference

From the top of the Showcase T bar, you climb up to the entrance of the Blackcomb Glacier, then traverse out onto the steep upper slopes, and down the bowl to this spot. That alone would rate an awesome run anywhere in the world. The day that Nick & I went down and I shot this photo above it had snowed about a foot of powder on the glacier. Visibility was poor, but the snow was awesome. By the time we reached this point my thighs were on fire and I needed to lie down and rest. Nick, being 13 years old was ready for more! Ah to be young! After the rest, we then ran for what seemed like miles down the cruiser run that leads to the top of the gondola. I swear this lower part was as long, or longer than Vail’s longest front-side run, Riva Ridge. We could have continued down to the village, but instead opted to download on the Gondola. It was our last run and we were pretty worn out. “Spring Conditions” ruled on the lower mountain, which means that it was slick and hard since the snow had gone through countless freeze/thaw cycles and who knows how much rain for good measure! The day before I had skied the “Peak to Creek” route on Whistler… in 25 minutes… so I don’t think I could have done the Glacier to Village run at Blackcomb and survived.

You can see all the pics from the trip here.

It was a fun few days, with the only real bad thing being Sue’s sore back and Nick having his rental skis mistakenly “stolen” the last day at lunch. He and I came out of the Roundhouse on Whistler and his skis were missing. We searched everywhere for them and finally found a nearly identical pair one row closer to the building than where he left his. When he tried them on they were just a hair too short, so we know that whoever took his was releasing out of the bindings all the way down! We ended up downloading instead… very bummed out. The rental shop was very cool about the whole situation thankfully.

The drive home was interesting, as they are tearing up all of highway 99 to get ready for the Olympics. They have a real challenge to get that road done before 2010! I miss the old 2-lane harrowing cliff-side road up Howe Sound’s stunning fjiord. Hard to see a challenging road fall to the inevitable “progress” of safety and ease of travel. Sigh.

blast from the past

What house is this?

I was looking for a VERY old bit of software in order to open some very old files over the weekend, and I stumbled upon a CD-ROM that was an image of a 120mb hard drive out of my Mac IIsi… which I haven’t seen since 1994 or so. Back in 1994 or so I worked for a Fortune 500 company (IIRC it was #50 on the list that year.) I actually worked for a department of a division of that company… but anyway we had big budgets to spend on IT gear, and I was the IT guy. One of the things we had was a CD-ROM burner, which back then was a very exotic “bit of kit”, at the Brits say. We archived our work on CD-ROM and so we bought a burner. Thirteen years ago CD-ROM burners cost about $20,000 and blank discs were around $20 a pop. I remember being thrilled when we were able to buy them in bulk for $17 a disc. Well, I’m happy to say that unlike today’s CHEAP CD-ROM burners and media, the high-dollar Kodak burned media lasted the thirteen years quite well! I have a complete and readable copy of a hard drive from that old Mac IIsi. So I started looking around that old data, and I figured I would share some.

First off, is that photo above. I’m the guy on the right in case you didn’t recognize me. 😉
The real question for you pop-culture mavens out there is: can you name the location? If you are of a certain age, it should be plainly obvious. Everyone in that shot is 30-something then, and is 40-something now, so think back to our teen years and take your guess in the comments section.

I also found some old emails. Some humor is timeless, and here’s an email joke from the past. If you are offended by clinical terms to describe anatomy, stop reading and grow up! If you are a geek of a certain sort, have a look at the ASCII context surrounding the message body and unearth the hidden contextual nuggets. Feel free to quiz me about them in the comments. Don’t worry about the revealed email address… Robert Hess is quite dead, so he’s unlikely to get any spam due to my posting this. I was one of Robert’s beta testers for his wonderful AppleShare admin tool “Shaman” or as it was later known “Sharing Stone”. Robert was a uniquely funny guy, but I doubt this joke originated with him. He and I were very different people, but I enjoy having friends who are very different from me. I really enjoyed the emails we exchanged… both as dev/tester, and as journalist/unnamed source. 😉 There are a group of us that gather every year at Macworld Expo… the roster changes slightly every year. Robert & I always met up for lunch the first day… usually made entertaining by a wild ride in his car. It was shocking when he died so suddenly… at least not in a fiery car crash. Anyway… here is a blast from the past:

Item 6557845 17-June-94 17:10From: ROBERT_HESS@MACWEEK.ZIFF.COM@INTERNET#To: KUECHLE1Â Kuechle, Scott X0357Â Microspot, World HQ,GB,IDV CDA0858Â Laser Expressions, N Soltz,PAS EL.GRANDEÂ -> DAVE.WINER UserLand SW, David Winer,PAS JMPDUDEÂ Puckett, Mike THEBONMARCHEÂ The Bon Marche, C Goolsbee,APD SEIWA.PUBLSHÂ Seiwa Computing Sys,JHAlexander,PAS SANTORINIÂ Santorini Consulting & Design,PRT SLIPSTREAMÂ Slipstream Solution, A J Alt,PASINTERNET# Document Id: 199406171609.AA13005@ncrpda.curtin.edu.------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sub: Why The Internet Is Like A---- Internet E-mail Header ---- From: "Robert Hess" - robert_hess@macweek.ziff.com Message-Id: 199406171609.AA13005@ncrpda.curtin.edu.au Sender: shaman@ncrpda.curtin.edu.au Precedence: bulk X-Listserver-Version: 6.0 -- UNIX ListServer by Anastasios Kotsikonas Reply-To: robert_hess@macweek.ziff.com Errors-To: robert_hess@macweek.ziff.com Originator: shaman To: Multiple recipients of list - shaman @ncrpda.curtin.edu.auMail*Link(r) SMTP Why The Internet Is Like A Penis It can be up or down. It's more fun when it's up, but it makes it hard to get any real work done.In the long-distant past, its only purpose was to transmit information considered vital to the survival of the species. Some people still think that's the only thing it should be used for, but most folks today use it for fun most of the time.It has no conscience and no memory. Left to its own devices, it will just do the same damn dumb things it did before.It provides a way to interact with other people. Some people take this interaction very seriously, others treat it as a lark. Sometimes it's hard to tell what kind of person you're dealing with until it's too late.If you don't apply the appropriate protective measures, it can spread viruses.It has no brain of its own. Instead, it uses yours. If you use it too much, you'll find it becomes more and more difficult to think coherently.We attach an importance to it that is far greater than its actual size and influence warrant.If you're not careful what you do with it, it can get you in big trouble.It has its own agenda. Somehow, no matter how good your intentions, it will warp your behavior. Later you may ask yourself "why on earth did I do that?"Some folks have it, some don't.Those who have it would be devastated if it were ever cut off. They think that those who don't have it are somehow inferior. They think it gives them power. They are wrong.Those who don't have it may agree that it's a nifty toy, but think it's not worth the fuss that those who do have it make about it. Still, many of those who don't have it would like to try it.Once you've started playing with it, it's hard to stop. Some people would just play with it all day if they didn't have work to do.

R.I.P. Robert.

bynkii.com: Sadly predictable

I’m linking to John’s reasoned and logical analysis of the political fallout from the Virginia Tech shooting. Go read it. There is no need for me to comment other than… yeah, I agree. I don’t have anything to say, but if I did, it would be something akin to what John said, just with less “John-ness” to it. 😉

So I’m linking so he’ll get some traffic and/or technorati rankings. Well done John.

How I spent my Sunday

If you recall, last December we had a huge windstorm that felled a 103′ tall Douglas Fir tree in our back yard. This happened literally days after we finished the cleanup from the big snow storm a few weeks before. That storm had most of our trees breaking branches off and falling (due to the weight of the snow) and we hired a landscaper to come saw them up and put them into a huge pile. We tried to do it ourselves but it was just too much work and we are short on time and the tools required.

The tree was another matter. My friend and coworker Shawn Hammer came and sawed up the tree into manageable chunks a couple of months ago. The remaining work is to just split and stack it to dry for use as firewood (for next time we lose electricity for a week!) I can do this job myself. But unlike other jobs, where it was important for issues of safety or whatnot to get it done swiftly, this job can be done at a leisurely pace.

An odd fact about me is that I don’t really like power tools. I’m not a luddite by any stretch of the imagination, I just don’t really mind using hand tools for a task like this. I was thinking about this while I was splitting these very heavy logs with an axe, a splitting wedge, and a 5lb short sledge hammer; we invented power tools to make human effort scale to meet commercial need. Power tools enabled us to get things done more efficiently. In this case, efficiency would be a luxury, not a NEED. I don’t have to have this wood split and stacked anytime soon. It could literally wait forever. My family might not want to have this stuff littering our yard, but in reality there is no pressing need to get it done. So why haul in some gas-powered splitter or something? The physical act of using hand tools to do the job is so much more engaging for me mentally. Looking at the wood grain, and knots and finding the just right spot to place the wedge. That moment of Zen-like calm as I relax, adjust the grip on the handle of the Collins Axe as it dangles behind my back… concentrating on the spot of wood that I wish to strike, before snapping it through the arc and (hopefully) through the log just right. The rhythm of the hammer on the wedge, and the tell-tale changes in pitch as it digs deeper into the wood, and then changes again as the pressure releases and the splitting starts. You cannot get this sort of VARIABLE connection to a task when just feeding a machine. The rhythms of feeding machinery can be theraputic, but it isn’t quite the same as doing the work by hand.

So I wandered out after breakfast and spent the better part of the day splitting wood. After I started I thought it would be fun to capture it in a timelapse; so I went and set up my laptop and iSight camera on the deck and fired up iStopMotion and got what you see above. That is about four and a half hours of work, condensed into a few seconds. Sorry about the out of focus-ness about it, but the iSight is obviously not really meant to be a long-range lens! My duct tape “tripod” also failed me, as you can see the camera shifted over time.

You can see the logs vanishing from the lower right and the pile of split wood growing in the upper right as the day goes on. Each log segment would yield about eight bits of firewood after splitting. I vanish about a third of the way in for a while… off to the barn to sharpen the splitting wedge (with a Dremel tool… see I’m not completely averse to power tools!) I’m also joined by Nick & Sue later in the day, and eventually they convince me to stop and go inside (but not until I split two more logs!) Sue brought me some iced tea at one point, and she runs the mower for a while too. Nick helps collect and stack the wood for me. The dogs just wander around being useless… and occasionally steal bits of wood to chew on. Christopher is no doubt very happy to be six-thousand miles away right now, or he’d be helping me too!

I managed to get over half of it done, so maybe next weekend I can wrap it up. Then we’ll have to stack the big pile.

The camera is pointing SW.

You would think that I’d be really sore, but I’m not. We’ll see what tomorrow brings! It helps that I’m ambidextrous (another little known fact about me: I can do just about everything with either hand. I write right-handed, as for some reason when I write left-handed I write backwards. The handwriting looks pretty much identical, but just backwards. I can draw, paint, play sports, swing a hammer or use other hand tools, operate a mouse, etc with either hand just fine. I usually go months at a time using the mouse with one hand or another… then suddenly switch. Lately I’ve been mousing lefty.) For me there is a sort of mental switch of gears when I change hands… it is really an adjustment to how I SEE things more than concentrating on my arms and hands. This allows me to work longer at things like swinging a hammer as I can just swap hands if I get tired. I never told my dad that when I was a teenager though. Funny how that works. 😉

Insightful Comment. Slashdot | Preparing for the Worst in IT

I was reading an article link on Slashdot which was talking about the “threat of outages on major Internet infrastructure” in general, and specifically about the “carrier hotel” in Los Angeles named “One Wilshire”. Every major city in the civilized world has at least one building like this. Here in Seattle it is “The Westin Building” (Ironically NOT the Westin Hotel buildings, but the old headquarters building for the hotel chain when it was located here in Seattle, before it shuffled off to New York after a string of M&A action. The Westin is a Carrier Hotel, not an actual hotel.)

Of all the threats that I can list in ACTUAL LIKELIHOOD that put a carrier hotel at risk, “terrorist attack” is not even in the top ten. (“Human Error” is always going to be Numero Uno. Nothing borks up things faster than error-prone human beings!) But for some dumb reason, everyone gets completely fixated on the possibility of a “terror attack on the Internet” in the form of a concentrated effort to “take out” a carrier hotel.

This is completely ludicrous. I will explore this lunacy in a future post (in my newly created “datacenter” category), but I wanted to point out a remarkably insightful comment I read on the /. link. It so well summarizes both the fearmongering I’ve grown REALLY tired of, and expresses the fundamental reality of American Life right now… meaning, “we’re over the shock of the event itself, and we’re tired of it being used to justify lunacy.” Read on…

Slashdot | Preparing for the Worst in IT
Sixteen days after 9/11 my daughter was born, it scared the shit out of me. I wondered if I would be drafted for war, I wondered if she would, one day go to war, I wondered if one day she would have to prepare for terrorist attacks in school, I wondered if she would be snuffed out two weeks into life by some nasty man made virus, I wondered if the virus had already been released and we just didn’t know it yet, I thought a lot about my daughter’s future and how I would raise her to deal with it. I was thoroughly terrified of the future.
Looking back on all of that I realize that Americans did more to terrify ourselves than the enemy ever could have. We’ve lost thousands of soldiers and spent billions of dollars in this war on terror and we are only more terrified, it doesn’t make us safer, it doesn’t keep the power on, we’re not flying safer, our water, internet, phones, roads, schools, our children are not safer, and hell we don’t even feel safer. It’s all at risk now, because we’ve spent all of our money and time trying to lock things down, keep things safe and protect ourselves from the boogeymen.
Today, my daughter is five, she can read, tie her shoes, and does well with math. She doesn’t know what a terrorist is and they don’t talk about that in school. Her little brother is also doing great, neither has gone hungry or lonely or cold a day in their lives and we still haven’t finished our Y2K rations. They know only one thing about politics and it’s that George W. Bush is a dumb ass. They also know what consumerism is and the ways that the TV can affect them.
I’m sick of hearing about terrorists and terrorism. I’m not scared of a terrorist attack and in fact, I’d rather be scared than watch another one of our civil liberties gobbled up by the administration or watch another funeral on the news. I’m so fucking sick of hearing about this “post 9/11” bullshit, that I could scream. We weren’t safe “pre 9/11” and there isn’t a fucking thing we can do to become safe in a post 9/11 world. Get over it. Life is fragile and raising your children in a bubble will not make them safer. In fact, once they inevitably leave that bubble they will not be able to survive the harsh reality that is “fresh air”. So thanks George W. for a nation that cannot move without asking themselves WWTTD? (What Would The Terrorists Do?)

Well said. It is a good starting point and frame of reference for my “why terrorists won’t attack the Internet” rant… coming soon.

Zagato at it again: Maserati GS Zagato – Autoblog

There is a term in the Design world called “Zeitgeist”, which is a German word roughly translated as “Spirit of the Time”. I saw the photograph of the custom Zagato-bodied Maserati on Autoblog and I first thought it was a new Jaguar XK, or maybe an Aston-Martin. Both of the latter were designed by Ian McCallum, not Zagato.

Then I remembered Zeitgeist.

Think back to the any era in automobiles and there are thematic elements that strongly identify the cars from that era. Spats, Fins, Curves, Wedges. There, I just defined the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s for you. 😉

Picasso said it so well, “Bad artists copy, and good artists steal.” Artists and Designers have been copying and stealing from each other since the dawn of time, so the ‘alikeness’ of some things is to be expected. Only rarely do objects appear that are BOTH revolutionary in appearance AND immediately appreciated. Usually when confronted with the revolutionary we reflexively reject it, as it is TOO different. This is true of all avenues of human expression, art, music, cars, movies, fashion, etc.

Think about that old Jaguar I have in the barn. It appeared in 1961 and literally caused a sensation. There was a lot about it that seemed “revolutionary” at the time, but in reality it was just an evolutionary step that was logical in nature. Disc brakes everywhere, independent rear suspension, “supercar” performance at a reasonable price… and of course the styling… all had been previewed before in bits, just never rolled into a mass-produced package. You can see the influence of the very successful D-type Jaguar race cars in the lines of the E-type. It was just smoothed out into something less pugnacious and more elegant. The result was stunning.

You can see its influence (or as Picasso would say, its felonious reappearance) across a broad spectrum of machines that all appeared within two years of the E-type’s debut in Geneva. They span the range from the Ferrari 250 GTO, to the Chevrolet Corvette. You could even say it became such an iconic shape as to have echoes a decade later, with such machines as the Datsun 240Z.

So I expect that the comment whiners all over the Web will complain about the sameness of this design (which by the way the SECOND time I looked at it seem to me to have paternal lineage in the Aston/Jag camp, and maternal links to the new Alfa Romeo 8C) but not realize that this was a one-off, for a customer, who shelled out big bucks, er… Euros, for it. As such it was built to meet HIS needs, not yours. People don’t buy revolutions, they buy comfort.

Does it remind me of other cars? Of course! Does that bother me? Nope.

Housekeeping

OK, so the sharp-eyed among you may have noticed a bit of a shake-up in the blogroll.

I’ve removed a couple of links. Bill Dickson’s server died, so he’s gone 404. I also removed Peter Lalor, since he actually died last October. I figured it was time to retire his link. Not that I’ll forget him or anything, just that his website is for all intents and purposes static. On that note I was staring at my iChat buddy list today and realized I have three dead people on it. 2006 was a hard one for me in that respect as I lost three good people. I don’t know why I chose today to remove them from my binary interfaces… it just happened. Oh well.

Anyway, I added some other links. Other friends, other websites I read, etc. Car stuff of course. Some datacenter links too. I read this stuff every day as it is the industry I live and work in. Some of you may find it interesting… or not. Just more stuff that when concatenated is chuck goolsbee.