Tralfaz

Blog

  • F*cking Marketers

    Somewhere, I coughed up my email address. It could have been to access a report, or a datasheet, or something. I used to be naive and think that they wouldn’t spam the shit out of me.

    But I was wrong.

    I get a constant stream. People looking to sell me mailing lists for “decision makers in IT software”, “SAP users”, “Oracle Users”, etc. I get 2 to 3 a day, and I always look for the “opt out” or unsubscribe option.

    About 2/3 of the time, the “opt out” or “unsubscribe” messages bounce. Those people get reported as spammers immediately. Alas, whoever harvested my email address continues to resell that.

    I hope there is a special ring of hell for people who do that.

    As a marketer myself, I know the temptation to use harvested emails for all sorts of usage. But I have a simple test. Would I personally like to get this message? If the answer is no, then I don’t use it. Seems simple.

    Alas, the world is full of scumbags.

  • Arthritis sucks

    Not sure where it came from. Perhaps it was playing too much guitar, or all the motorcycle/bicycle riding I have done over the years. Or it is just bad luck, but the arthritis in my left thumb sucks.

    I started noticing it a few months ago. When I started cycling again seriously (more than once a month 😉 ) I noticed that my left thumb was sore afterwards. It has gotten progressively worse, until in early September I went to my doctor. X-Rays showed a deterioration of the cartilage in my left thumb (boo) and a bone spur. Put me in a spica splint, told me to take 800mg of vitamin I twice a day, and if it didn’t get noticeably better in two week, to go to a specialist.

    Needless to say, it didn’t magically improve, so off to a specialist I go.

    There I get more x-rays, and a really shitty piece of news. There is virtually NO cartilage left in my left thumb, there are multiple bone spurs, and while the bone spurs will likely wear down (and thus the discomfort will reduce somewhat), my thumb will never be good again. This time I get a custom make spica splint for my thumb to wear while sleeping, and I still take shedloads of vitamin I.

    After that first appointment with the specialist, I will admit that I had to sit in my car and cry. My thumb (and by extension hand) will NEVER be good again. I go back in 6 weeks to check on it, and if it isn’t better (and the Dr. said that was a stretch), it would be time for cortisone shots. That should control the discomfort. But the cartilage is gone for good.

    Today, I tried playing guitar. Good news/bad news. I have done enough practicing in the last few months that some of my speed and chops were coming back. Bad news is that the thumb pain is pretty bad while playing. I fear it is just a matter of time until I will have to put my axes in the case and give up playing.

    I am too damn young for this shit.

  • Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks – re-learning linux

    One of the reasons that I have contemplated often the jump to a VPS for my web hosting was the freedom to do what I wanted. That was always balanced by a bit of fear that I might f*ck up my VPS linux installation.

    I had played with linux often, in the past, but never seriously. It ran a firewall on my home network back when I had an ISDN line, and I had built some inside the firewall file servers with old RedHat linux. But that was child’s play. Going VPS means I am out there on the internet, and I am responsible to not mess it up.

    Gulp.

    I have been up and running for a month now, and nothing serious has happened. Fortunately, the VM is pretty well configured out of the box. I haven’t had any real issues with the box (apart from needing to restart Apache a couple of times). And I am enjoying “remembering/relearning” how to do the basic things again. I still am fearful that I will blow it in a big way, but by and large, as long as I keep it patched, and keep all the software I am running up to date I feel confident that I will be OK.

    I still worry about a SHTF event, and I will be instituting a backup process on a weekly basis. But, so far, it has been a positive experience.

  • Apple- What Happened – iTunes

    For years people, knowing I am an Apple fan, have grumbled about iTunes and how much of a POS it is. And for years, I have responded back that “It’s way better on the Mac”, because the Windows version has been a veritable homeless abortion in all its incarnations. Yes, by the time it was in version 9, it was getting cumbersome to navigate, but at least it was solid and reliable on the Mac.

    Version 10 fixed a lot of the navigation, and capabilities, particularly for those of us with 17K songs or more in our collections.

    Version 11 was fine too. But then the iOS 7 launch happened, and iTunes was updated to support it. Now it is a crashy, bug ridden, processor hogging program, especially on my Mac’s. Sigh. Now I have to apologize to my Windows friends who I have been telling that iTunes works fine on a Mac to.

    Because it fucking sucks even on the mac now. I find myself force-quitting it 2 – 3 times a day it seems. Grrrrrrr.

  • Getting Spoilt – MacBook Air edition

    In July, I splurged and bought a Mac Book Air. My MacBook pro was a little aged, and I wanted to go for a smaller, lighter laptop, yet I didn’t want to go too small. Plus I am a Mac person.

    I have been using it pretty heavily, and it has been super solid. It has enough storage, it is fast enough, and while I would like the retina display, I am really grooving on the 12+ hours of battery life I am getting on it.

    My macbook pro is semi-permanently attached to a sweet 24″ monitor, and my Drobo for backups, and the Mac Book Air is my walking around computer.

    This last weekend, I was moving websites to my new hosting account (see ‘A Bad Day – Webhosting“) , so I unplugged the MBP and relocated to the couch. Oh. My. God. That thing is friggin HUGE compared to the Air. Yes, it is a 15″, and it is from the generation before the Retina display, but compared to the Air, it is heavy, huge, and cumbersome (it also has a quadcore processor, 16G ram, and a terabyte of disc).

    It honestly felt how I thought a 17” laptop felt. Too big.

    Nope, I don’t think I will be going back to that monstrosity. It will remain my stationary system until it dies, then I will probably replace it with a Mini.

  • Memories of my Mother – Malt-o-meal

    One of the memories I have of growing up was eating Malt-o-meal. For those who are unaware, it is a hot farina of wheat cereal. We didn’t eat it often, but what I “liked” about it was the lumps. They were like finding nuggets of chewy goodness in every bowl.

    Malt-o-mealEvery time my mother made malt-o-meal, it had lumps. Sometimes they were small, sometimes they were large, but they were always present. I just assumed that malt-o-meal had lumps in it.

    Then I moved out, and years later started making it myself. Surprise, there weren’t any lumps. No matter how I made it, as long as I followed the directions, I had creamy, smooth hot cereal. No lumps.

    I began experimenting with it, and it turns out that while stirring is important, the secret to lump free malt-o-meal is to slowly add it to the boiling water, while stirring the water. You pretty much have to just dump it all in at once to get lump formation.

    What a strange memory of my Mother, lumpy Malt-o-meal.

  • A good ride

    I haven’t been able to ride for a few weeks. My left foot was strangely painful, and the cycling shoes made it far worse.

    Today I sucked it up suited up, and headed out into the chilly (50F) morning. I put on an easy 21 miles. Didn’t set any speed records, and I didn’t want to push it too hard.

    The result is good. No pain in the foot, and my hand was OK too (it is a mazing what 800 mg of ibuprofen can do…)

    I may head out again tomorrow.

    My shoes are going to be replaced though. They are 12 years old, and are thoroughly shagged. The problem is I have wide feet. 11.5 EEE to be precise, so I had to order up a pair of cycling shoes. I am sure that they will improve the situation as well.

    Looking forward to heading out tomorrow. Good to be back in the saddle.

  • Finally a Friday

    I don’t usually celebrate the coming of a Friday like many people do, but it has been an outrageously busy week, so I am thankful that it is a Friday.

    I have wrangled with powerpoint, struggled to do deep competitive analysis, and put together training material next week. Couple that with a heavy load of meetings (strange, as I have been good at staying away from meaningless meetings) and I am fatigued.

    Add to that learning that my left thumb has severe osteoarthritis, and it has been a bummer of a week.

    Oh, and today is day 7 without coffee or caffeinated beverages.

    Not sure how I am going to recharge this weekend. I will try to see if I can cycle tomorrow (my left foot has been painful), and I will do some more website migration (still trying to empty out my MediaTemple account). But I need to NOT check email this weekend. So I will leave my laptop at home, me thinks.

    TGIF indeed.

  • The best time of the year: Adopt a Physicist!

    Twice a year, the SPS (society of physics students, a branch of the American Physics Society) hosts a forum which matches physicists (like me) with high school classes with students studying physics. They ask questions and we respond.

    I have done this regularly since 2009, and it is the highlight of my year. Each physicist who volunteers gets “adopted” by three high school classes, and then the discussion begins.

    There are some predictable questions, like “How was it studying in college?” “What was your favorite subject” and a lot of questions about being a product manager, working in industry, and how physics helps me there.

    But the real fun is the tangents that the discussions go down. In one of my classes, one of the students is planning on studying cognitive language recognition, one is planning on studying physics in a foreign country (can’t help you there), and it turns out that one of them plays guitar, so we have talked about music as well as physics.

    I am glad to participate, and I hope that the students get what they expected out of it. But, guilty admission, it is a LOT of fun.

  • Caffeine watch

    Day 5 and I am hitting a major wall in the afternoon. I need self control to not go grab a coffee. And I have meetings until 6:30 PM tonight. Groan.

    Wish me luck