Paul's Journal

A very happy birthday wish

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:05:42 GMT

Happy birthday cheer today for my dear capricious_k -- may the coming year be even more fabulous than the last!

And congrats on keeping up the tradition of spending your birthday away on vacation. I'm writing this as we've just finished our exploration of the old Columbia Gorge highway including several waterfalls, good hiking, great company (waves to miss_emelia. And of course the Browcoat Ball in Portland has been a great time, as well as visiting with Portland friends and relatives.

Cheers to Portland and cheers to your birthday, capricious_k!!

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NYC here we come!

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 18:55:38 GMT

I'm about to head out to the Big Apple with capricious_k and fresne . This trip will definitely be full of awesome!

It'll only be my second time ever visiting New York City. The last time we went was in 2006, and I had an absolutely magical time. Perhaps the thing that struck me the most was that I'd been seeing that city in so many movies, comic books, and TV shows for so long that to actually walk around in it gave it an almost Disney-like feeling. I can't wait to recapture that sensation. And as a bonus, fresne 's never been before so I'll get to watch her head go all 'splody the same way mine did.

We'll be gone for a whole week this time too, which will give us more time to explore more nooks and crannies. Our plan is to do lots of touristy things, take a ton of photos, drink a lot of cocktails and eat at a ton of great restaurants.

What'll be different about this visit from the last time I was there? This time I'll have an iPhone. :-)

So I Think I Can (Watch) Dance

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 21:30:06 GMT

I attended the So You Think You Can Dance performance finale last night!

With last minute invitation from kevbot and his wife to capricious_k and I, and a lot of last minute scrambling, we managed to pull of a day trip down to LA for the show. It required a lot of things to go right, but the stars aligned and we had a blast.

Kev had signed up for tickets a while ago, and only just got notification that some vouchers had been assigned to him. Mind you, these were vouchers, not tickets. The FAQ explained that you had to go stand in line to pick up tickets, and getting a voucher was not a guarantee of a ticket. It seems that much like airlines overbook flights, SYTYCD overbooks shows.

We got up early on Tuesday morning and with just the clothes on our backs (thanks again ScotteVest!) and a nice shirt in my patented disposable dress shirt transportation system (aka a plastic bag from the supermarket) we drove to the airport. Kev and Rachel had some upgrade coupons for the airline that were about to expire, so to make the day even better they upgraded us to 1st class airplane seats (which is also the first time I've ever done that).

Short hop down to LA and a taxi ride to Hollywood got us to the Kodak Theater (the same one they do the Oscars in). It was also my first time in Hollywood; I'm not sure how I managed to go this long with out ever stopping there. We stood in line, which was thankfully in the shade, and got pretty good seats. We actually had a couple of extra passes, which Rachel conveniently had organized to give away to some folks she'd only communicated with via FriendFeed. We all sat down for an early dinner, and got prepared. Part of that preparation was ditching our cell phones -- no phones or cameras were allowed in the theater -- which Kev took care of by slipping a few bucks to the concierge at the hotel next door.

Into the theater we went. First off, the Kodak theater is huge an gorgeous. Needless to say, there were a lot of teenage girls and the staff definitely sat a lot of them in the front of the orchestra section. That turned out to be not so great for some of them; the staff had a mandate to keep 100% of the seats filled at all times so no empty seats ever showed up on camera, and when they led in all the choreographers, competitors from earlier in the season & earlier seasons, and special guests the teenage seat-fillers were booted out (and I think banished to the upper mezzanine).

The whole experience took about 4 hours: 1 hour to seat us all while they performed some final technical checks, then about 3 hours to tape a 2 hour show. They taped it almost as you see it, with occasional re-dos when there was a technical boo-boo. Needless to say, it was fantastic to see the dancing performed live instead of edited for TV, so you could actually take in the whole piece (and the dancers' whole bodies instead of occasional close-ups of feet or heads).

All of the dancing was great, but the real stand-out was Jeanine. She's always been an underdog and isn't my favorite, but her solo was the best she's ever done and won an instant standing ovation. There's also a paso doble at the end that's amazingly good. Other highlights included the whole theater shouting "EVAN! EVAN! EVAN! EVAN!" right after Nigel gave him a bad review, Cat's funny improvs, all the children they interviewed in the audience during the "commercial breaks," and Phillip getting up on stage to do a spontaneous performance during another of the breaks.

We rushed out of the theater as they wrapped up. Kev had ordered a car for us to get us back to LAX, where we made it in plenty of time to catch our flight home. A very long day, but well worth it.

Comic-Con '09 Wrap-up

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:41:03 GMT

Comic-Con was once again a blast this year. We took the whole week off, spending two days on a leisurly drive down replete with nice wine tasting in Paso Robles. Then we spent a couple of days bumbing around San Diego. We hung out on the beach, I visited my sweet 3-year-old nephew, and I even re-connected with a college girlfriend whom I hadn't seen for probably a decade. Oh, and instead of a normal hotel room, this year we slept on a yacht. :-)

The con itself was overwhelming as always. We started out on preview night, where they open the doors to early attendees before the con truly begins. This year fresne , capricious_k and I were joined by one of our co-workers who's been a closet geek for some time, and took the plunge into the grandaddy of all pools. :-) She was immediately shocked at the size and density of the dealer's room, and fell in love with some tribbles she found at one of the booths.

The next four days were a whirlwind of panels and shopping. One of the great highlights for me was the iGoogle Comics Themes launch, which I've already blogged about. Shortly after I posted that blog entry, I met up with several other members of the Comics Launch Team at the Marvel booth and we handed out free posters to the crowd. It was amazing being on the other side of the great schwag frenzy and was definitely one of the highlights of the con for me this year. You can find a photo of it here.

Other con highlights included Edward James Olmos at the Battlestar Galactica/Caprica panel (he's a really intense and funny guy!), seeing Alice on a horror panel, laughing at the gaggle of teenage girls trying to catch a glimps of the Twilight stars, and hearing Kevin Conroy moan in a highly suggestive manner to Andrea Romano. And of course, the amazing costumes and energy you get just from wandering the enormous dealer's room floor.

Needless to say, we've already purchased our tickets for next year.

I love my job: iGoogle at Comic-Con

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:56:19 GMT

Today I'm giddy with one of my proudest moments working for Google lo these 5 years. I've been working with the iGoogle team (mostly in an advisory capacity) to prepare Google's participation in Comic-Con and comicbookdom in general.

First off, we've partnered with lots of comics producers who've created 50 gorgeous comic book iGoogle themes. You can find them at http://www.google.com/comicsthemes

Secondly, today's homepage doodle features DC Comics heroes drawn by the legendary Jim Lee. Probably my most favorite homepage doodle ever. It's found at the Classic Google homepage at http://www.google.com

I was the guy on the iGoogle team that new the most about superhero comics, so this was a ton of fun Never before have I contributed to something that does such a great job of combining one of my favorite hobbies with my favorite job. I hope you enjoy them.

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To San Diego Comic-Con... and beyond!

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:41:22 GMT

Actually we're doing the beyond part first, then proceeding to the con. But no matter what the order of operations is, capricious_k , fresne , and I are about to depart on our annual pilgrimage to San Diego Comic-Con, the largest geek convention in the world.

We're going to take a couple of days to drive down this time, so hopefully we'll get a little wine tasting along the way. We're actually staying on a yacht in the marina which I'm very much looking forward to checking out even if it is a little far from the convention center. We'll spend the first couple of days bumming around San Diego seeing the sights, visiting with friends and family, and generally having a lazy time of it.

Then the 4 day geekfest begins. For those of you not familiar with it, SDCC is far more than just a comic book convention. It's also where Hollywood comes to showcase all their movies that have big special effects budgets coming out in the next year, upcoming scifi/fantasy/horror TV shows, cool cartoons, etc. Lots of stars come out to play. Fan groups like the California Browncoats have a great presence, tons of people dress up in amazing costumes, video game producers show off their latest wares, and so on. And then there's the shopping... oh the shopping! The entire main convention floor is turned into a gigantic nerd mall for all your geeky needs -- action figures, tomes on the philosophical relevance of comics as a medium, pirate costumes, imported anime... you name it, it's probably out there somewhere.

Also, this year capricious_k and I have an extra treat because one of our coworkers, who I think of as a budding geek, is coming to join us for the con and I'm really looking forward to watching her head go splody as soon as SDCC starts to overwhelm her. Trust me, if you've never been to SDCC before your head will go splody.

For those of you I'm expecting to bump into in San Diego, I look forward to seeing you there!

I'll try to post an blog update or two from San Diego, but I expect more timely and relevant (if shorter) updates to be on my Twitter feed @wintergr3y.

Friday dancing: Tempest in a different park

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:26:59 GMT

I'm sitting here in downtown Redwood City enjoying the Celtic rock of Tempest. Sadly I've been so busy the last couple days that I haven't had a chance to give. Shout out to see if any of my Irish dancing peeps could join the fun - but if you can make it down here in the next couple of hours please do!

No Friday Night Waltz for me tonight - too much laundry and packing to do tonight before heading out on vacation (more on that when I get a chance to post those plans).

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HBD Kev!

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:40:58 GMT

Happy birthday kevbot. Hope you're enjoying your vacation, and here's to another year of travels and friendship!

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

I <3 Auto-Tune vids

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:34:02 GMT

Last Friday I was introduced to "Rap Chop," the Slap Chop remix:

And then today, I stumbled across Auto-Tune The News. They're all brilliant, but this one was my favorite:

Daybreakers trailer

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:00:04 GMT

Ooo, this looks interesting! When Vampires rule the Earth...

Yo Bro, it's not for me -- honestly! (or The Occasional Perils of Targeted Advertising)

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:21:25 GMT

This morning miss_emelia called me up to ask a favor. A co-worker of mine had borrowed a petticoat from her for a costume event, and I was well-positioned to facilitate its return. So the co-worker and I just started an email conversation about the logistics of returning said petticoat.

Of course, our email conversation was taking place via Gmail, which includes automatically targeted advertising based on the content of the message. Imagine my surprise when I see this alongside our conversation:

Well yes, I am a man and yes, the conversation was about ladies undergarments. So technically this is a well-targeted ad. But, ummmmm, no.

Impressions of my new 2010 Prius

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:39:04 GMT

I'm reposting something I wrote this morning on PriusChat, arguably the preminant Prius website. It's a detailed essay on my initial impressions of my new 2010 Prius.

Since it was initially posted on PriusChat, it referrs to capricious_k as "my girlfriend" and miss_emelia as "my friend."

I've had my III w/ nav for a few days, and I'd like to share my initial impressions. Overall, I'm extremely pleased with this car!

This is my first hybrid, and I've driven stick shift my whole life so I have some adjusting to do. I also occasionally get to drive my girlfriend's Mini Cooper S -- a car with a ton of zip -- so it makes comparisons... interesting.

Driving:

As others have mentioned, the steering isn't as "mushy" as on a Gen2 Prius (I've driven some friends' Gen2s for comparison) and in fact feels like just about any other car to me. It does take slightly more revolutions of the steering wheel to do a u-turn compared to most other cars I've driven, but I don't find this bad or distracting. It's odd, but the steering wheel itself is slightly oblong and not true round -- again not a bad thing, just unusual.

Our first night with the car we took it on a long drive in narrow, twisty hills (up Highway 9 from Silicon Valley to Santa Cruz, for those of you familiar with the area). The car performed very well. Not super-zippy-amazing like a Mini Cooper of course, but not anything like a station wagon or minivan might. This was definitely a situation that called for PWR mode though, and the car cornered much better on twisty roads after I made the switch. ECO mode is not recommended for twisty hill driving.

On the way back (from Santa Cruz to Silicon Valley via Highway 17) I let my girlfriend take the wheel and she proceeded to drive it like she would her Mini. Highway 17 is a somewhat narrow freeway where the traffic was flowing at 50-ish mph with lots of curves, and she found the car performed surprisingly well -- not "whiptastic" like her Mini, but not as far off as we'd imagined it would be! (And for those of you concerned that we were pushing my Prius beyond the boundaries of the break-in driving recommendations, the geography of the road prevented this -- but we were definitely riding the upper-edge of the recommendation).

Around town this is definitely a cruiser car. It's quiet, it's pretty tight (though not as tight as the Mini, obviously). Of the four driving modes (regular/EV/ECO/PWR) I find myself leaving it in ECO most of the time. Frankly, there's usually no reason not to; the only thing I imagine that's wrong with that is me pissing off the people behind me that I'm not leaping off the line when a stoplight turns green.

As I drive around town I find myself looking at the MID too much. I know there's a whole thread on the forum devoted to that topic, and as posters there point out I'll probably get used to hybrid driving style after I've driven the car for a while. I'm definitely driving like a little old man in this car, as I'm quickly getting sucked into achieving the best mileage possible (59.3 mpg is my best so far).

Another thing that will take some getting used to is a sense for where the front corners are on the car. The seat position is very far back from the bottom of the front windshield, and the hood of the car is very steep (part of what gives the Gen3 it's iconic arrowhead shape). One consequence of this design is that the driver can't see the front corners of the car at all. This makes me a little nervous on sharp corners. It also makes it a bit tricky to pull the car all the way into my garage, and several times I've noticed I didn't pull it far enough forward into a spot in a parking lot. This is something else I expect I'll adjust to over time, but for now it's definitely weird.

The Prius' famous blind spot seems to have been reduced from the Gen2. I think it's been virtually eliminated looking over the left shoulder, and reduced looking over the right shoulder.

Looks, Interior, & Accessories:

First off, one of the most fun things about being an early adopter of the Gen3 Prius in Silicon Valley, where the Gen2s are so popular they line the roads from horizon to horizon and are so thick you need a machete to chop through them, is that it's a head turner. In less than a week, I've had a lot of people do double-takes at my car.

I had a chance a couple of days ago to park behind a friend's Gen2 and we compared exteriors. Hers was definitely more of a bubble shape, and mine was definitely more of an arrow shape. I think mine looks cooler. Several of my friends and coworkers have told me they think it looks like a space ship -- a look that is only enhanced my the swooping center console between the front seats.

Speaking of that center console, I like it. It's fun, it gives me great access to all the buttons, it doesn't get in my way. My girlfriend appreciates the spot under the console for her to stick her purse. If I was given the opportunity to change one thing about the design of the car, however, it would be the position of the EV/ECO/PWR buttons -- those are simply too far away from the driver, and there's no way to tell which one you're pressing unless you take your eyes off the road to look at them.

The stereo system sounds great to my non-audiophile ears, and it's nice to finally own a car with an aux jack I can plug an iPod into. I'll definitely shell out for the iPod/nav integration when it becomes available. I'm enjoying the satellite radio, but I don't know if I'll actually pay for a subscription after my free trial ends; I mostly drive my 20-minute commute and errands around town so I'm not convinced it's worth it. The stereo controls on the steering wheel are fine, I just wish the Mode button let you cycle backwards through modes as well as forward.

The nav system is cool, complex, and will take some getting used to. It has so many menus that learning to navigate them, especially by voice, will take a while. But it does work well; the other night I wanted to find a Quizno's sandwich shop near my friend's house, and it guided me right there. I was pleasantly surprised it had such fine detail in its database.

Since I've got the nav system I have a backup camera, which I haven't had much use for yet. I left the backup alarm beep set to constant, since I'm a hybrid newbie and I wanted the reminder (which I think will be doubly important when I loan the car to someone else). My car also happened to have a port-installed backup sensor (the person who originally ordered the car had it installed, then backed out of the deal at the last second which is how I got my car so fast) which is more useful than the camera. Parallel parking a new car is always tricky and the backup sensor helps me more than the backup camera. Why? Because the camera's fish-eye lens distorts the image so much that it's very difficult to judge true distance, whereas the sensor just beeps at me to let me know how far back I have to go. Of course, with both the backup alarm and backup sensor, this can lead to a whole lot of beepin' goin' on.

I'm quite happy with my choice of colors. You can see a bunch of photos here. The Blue Ribbon was so very, very tempting but (as you can see from my username) I've got a thing for gray so it was fate. The gray exterior matches very well with the dark gray interior. I also got floor mats, and those also match well (not so awkward as the photos I've seen of the misty gray interior with the dark-colored mats).

Final Thoughts:

Boy am I happy with this car! My last car was a 1995 Honda Civic which I purchased brand new and drove for more than a decade. Unless all of us early adopters discover something horribly wrong with the Gen3 Prius, I expect I'll keep this car for many, many years. By the time I'm done with this car, I hope the next generation of eco-friendly cars (plug-ins, fuel cells, cold fusion, whatever) are into their 2nd or 3rd generation and I'll move on to that happy and guilt-free.

Mashup Rickroll

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:25:20 GMT

Apparently this is what I missed at Friday Night Waltz last night:

The 3rd Generation

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:01:12 GMT

The first generation was cool and high-tech for its time, but kinda funky and new:

The second generation was refit, rebuilt, sleeker and better:

The third generation is the new hotness, the sexiest one that everyone wants; faster, more efficient, more high-tech, and even sleeker:

So for my new wheels, I dub thee: EXCELSIOR!

(And yes, before you start making cracks about how Scotty pulled the spark plugs, remember that Sulu kicked some serious ass with that ship, and the entire Excelsior class was still in service in NexGen. Thhhhhptt!!)

Happy birthday to unseelie23

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 18:02:23 GMT

Birthday greetings to you today, sir!

Nathan Fillion is: Green Lantern! (not)

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:06:18 GMT

Not really, it's a fan-made trailer edited together from a lot of different sources. But it's still a lot of fun! Originally spotted at SciFi wire.

By the way, If you're unfamiliar with Green Lantern and are intrigued there's an animated movie coming out later this summer that will retell the origin story. Warner Brothers also have a feature film in pre-production.

Proof that I'm American: tearing up over my car

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 02:45:35 GMT

My new Prius should be ready for pickup on Tuesday, and I'm getting really excited. I'm very ready for a new car. Bigger, better, greener, lots of modern amenities... all of these add up to something I'm very much looking forward to. If all goes according to plan, I'll probably keep this Prius for years and years.

But it was years and years I was contemplating earlier this afternoon as I was clearing out my 1995 Honda Civic EX, which I affectionately named Stormchaser (or Chaser for short). Chaser is a medium-shade gray with just a hint of purple. Chaser really glows in the rain; when that paint gets wet the purple gets iridescent and the color is beautiful. That car earned his name the first time I noticed the paint after a rainshower. We've been together for a long time.

Chaser is the 3rd car I've ever owned, but is my first "adult" car. I had one in high school and one in college, but Chaser was brand new right off the lot, and I paid for him with my own money after I negotiated a raise. I'd actually researched the Honda Civic the year before when my girlfriend at the time bought her first car. Even though I'd broken up with her, I realized that all the research I'd done applied just as equally to me as it had to her, so I went for it. With that history, though, there's always been a tiny association I've held in my soul between that car and that ex.

But Chaser and I had a life together for more than a decade, and I hadn't really realized how much until I was cleaning him out. Stuff that'd built up in the car for years, old dings and paint scratches, and that comfortable feeling of sliding behind the wheel... something I've done so many, many times over the years.

The very last things I took out of Chaser were a charm that Lindaloo made for me to keep me safe, and a Celtic knot that symbolizes my indoctrination into the local Celtic rock and Irish ceili scene, both of which hung from the rear-view mirror. As I took them down I thought about all the things I'd done with that car, all the places I'd been... the commutes, the vacations, the visits to friends and girlfriends, the drives back and forth to the Starry Plough, the trips to Tahoe (oh the many blizzards we've shared!), and just lazy drives through the hills I grew up in.

Those times have come to an end. Thank you Stormchaser, for everything. May your next owner have as fulfilling a life together as we have.

Han Solo, P.I.

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:37:10 GMT

Ganked from Gizmodo, I give you... Han Solo, P.I.!

And here's how they did it, in a shot-by-shot comparison with the original:

A hybrid commitment: I've ordered a Gen3 Prius

Fri, 29 May 2009 17:06:27 GMT

I've been car shopping, and my heart is set on the 2010 Prius (aka Gen3 Prius). Everything the Gen2 has, plus better looking, bigger interior, and most importantly better mileage (average 50mpg). The local dealers all seemed to be selling them for the same price: exactly MSRP, no negotiating.

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from the Palo Alto Toyota dealer that they got 3 cars fresh off the boat that were available for test driving. So after work I dashed over there and took it out for a spin. It definitely drives better than a Gen2. Gone is the "mushy" steering, and the car now has a more responsive acceleration. It also has 3 alternate driving modes: EV (battery only for speeds under 25mph), ECO (reduced air conditioning, mushier acceleration so you don't burn gas by stomping on the peddle) and PWR (pretty much the opposite of ECO, useful when driving in the hills or if you have a guilty urge to burn gas in your hybrid). That nasty Prius blind spot is still there, but it's not as bad over the right shoulder (and is practically eliminated over the left shoulder).

Better mileage + better driving experience = time for me to commit. And since the Palo Alto dealer was more polite than the Sunnyvale guy, and he called me immediately after he got some in for test driving, I decided his dealership deserved my business. So I plunked down $500 to reserve a spot in line. I want Package #3 (cloth seats, smaller tires) with the nav system (no sunroof) in Winter Gray (squeeeeee the car comes in a color that's my favorite username!!!!).

Now I wait. All of the dealers are only getting a handful of cars every couple of weeks, and there's probably several people in line in front of me who want the same configuration. It'll probably be a couple of months before I get a car. In the meantime I guess I'll figure out how to dispose of my 14 year old Honda Civic, and keep pining away for the day I can christen it (I already have a name picked out).

But when that day finally comes, I'll be as cool as these guys:

"FTC goes nuclear" on car warranty robocallers

Sat, 16 May 2009 00:09:24 GMT

A follow up to my post the other day about Reddit.com users using social engineering to strike back at the car warrenty robocallers. The Federal Trade Commision has gone to war with the two companies responsible for most of the madness.

"This is one of the most aggressive telemarketing schemes the FTC has ever encountered," said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. "I’m not sure which is worse, the abusive telemarketing tactics of these companies, or the way they try to deceive people once they get them on the phone. Either way, we intend to shut them down."

Why Twitter's #fixreplies isn't a mistake

Thu, 14 May 2009 16:37:05 GMT

The Twittersphere's been all abuzz the last couple of days ever since Twitter announced they were making some changes to the way the @ settings worked. Users rebelled, and deluged Twitter with FAIL!!1! messages, demanding the settings be returned to the way they originally worked. Twitter "relented" after a day and returned partial functionality, but for a lot of the user who were complaining this change wasn't enough.

The tech blogs quickly fired off articles critical of Twitter's actions, and wondering if Twitter had a hidden motive for making the change. TechCrunch may have lead the charge, with headlines like Trouble Right Here in Twitter City, KISS FAIL. You Can Now See Twitter Replies Sometimes, Except When You Can’t., and Twitter’s Spectacularly Awful 24 Hours.

I think the real clue was in Twitter's second blog post about this, which stated: "The engineering team reminded me that there were serious technical reasons why that setting had to go or be entirely rebuilt—it wouldn't have lasted long even if we thought it was the best thing ever." It also states, "One of the strongest signals is that folks were using this setting to discover and follow new and interesting accounts—this is something we absolutely want to support."

Since I've been part of this sort of cycle a few times, I can see there are two perspectives here: users reaction and developer needs. From a user perspective, what they mostly see is "You gave me a feature, then you took it away. I want it back!" Seems like a reasonable request, right?

But look at things from Twitter's point of view. The engineers are saying, "Our current @ display system is working right now, but only barely. As Twitter grows, we're coming up against some serious technical limitations." Heck, for all I know Twitter's explosive growth has been straining the @ system, which wasn't designed to handle the sort of traffic it's been pumping out. As they said, "...it wouldn't have lasted long even if we thought it was the best thing ever." And to top it off, only 3% of their users actually used the existing system.

What's something worse than user backlash about the removal of the feature? The entire feature (or maybe even the entire system) coming crashing down because it collapsed under its own weight -- which would cause a lot more negative feedback and probably be a lot harder to fix. At least this way, they got to shut down the feature in a controlled fashion.

Twitter is also succeeding on this issue becuase they're not just taking the raw feedback at face value. People are saying, "We like that feature, keep it in." What they mean, however, is "We like a simple system for discovering new users, and we'd like to have one." Apparently Twitter is working on just such a system, but it's not ready yet. I can only guess that they estimated the @ system was going to break before the replacement system was ready, or that instituting the new system required the old system to be shut off first.

If Twitter made any mistakes, it was in not explaining this in detail up front. If they're first blog post had read "Hey everyone, we know you like our @ system, however it's got some severe technical limitations and is about to break so we've got to shut it down. We're sorry you won't have a simple discovery system for a while, but rest assured we're building a replacement system that will scale better. We'll get it out to you as soon as we can."

Even with that sort of up-front disclosure, I'm sure a lot of users would have stuck with "You took something away from me" and left it at that. Hopefully Twitter can get their replacement system up and running soon -- that'll be the best panacea #fixreplies.

I've said I hate microblogging... and I just joined Twitter

Mon, 11 May 2009 04:38:40 GMT

Why? Well, all the cool kids are doing it these days. Edit: You can find me at twitter.com/wintergr3y.

Also, I've found it incredibly handy for work. Want to know exactly how the public feels about the product I'm working on right now? Twitter Search always gives me the answer.

At least I can say I've been on FriendFeed since its inception. (Which reminds me, I still need to do that big FriendFeed post.)

Why have I said I hate microblogging? Frankly, I find the content mostly trivia. Even the content from my friends; I don't care what kind of sandwich you just ate or if your cat barfed on your living room carpet. But I'm going to give this a shot, at least for a while -- and I'll try to keep my personal trivia to a minimum. :-)

And while I'm on the subject, can any of you iPhoners recommend a good Twitter app?

Star Trekkin' across the universe...

Sat, 09 May 2009 16:41:53 GMT

...on the starship Enterprise, under Captain Kirk!

So I'm going to have to disagree with most of America. Although I enjoyed the new Star Trek film, I don't think it's the best one ever -- Wrath of Khan still has the top spot in my heart.

Don't get me wrong, it is very good. It does lots of things right, and is definitely worth seeing. It did a few things wrong, though, which kept it just short of the #1 spot. To talk about the details I'm going to have to spoil a lot of stuff.

I very much appreciated that they tied it to NextGen continuity. Even more so, I admire how boldly they broke away from the original continuity. When Spock's mom died I thought, "Oh shit!" Then as the red matter was dropping into Vulcan, even before they started the implosion CGI, I realized they were truly taking gigantic leaps away from the Star Trek universe we know and love. I'm a big fan of this sort of storytelling, the kind it takes guts to do, because it makes the story stronger -- no namby-pamby yet another movie that feals like a 2 hour episode with a bigger budget; this one's boldly going forward at hardcore speed.

I was very impressed by how well the actors let the spirits of the original characters shine through, yet kept them young. It's hard to tell from the TV ads and trailers, but I think all of them do a good job of showing the essence of who they portrayed while shaving 10 years off their lives.

But one major character was missing, and that was the Enterprise herself. Oh she was there in the background allright, but she didn't really get to strut her stuff. Abrams chose a style that was a lot closer to the new Battlestar Galactica or Firefly for the space scenes, which I assume he did to add a hectic feel to the space battles. In this, he did the movie a disservice because you couldn't tell what the heck was going on. There'd be a flash of nacelles and phaser fire and then he'd cut back to an interior shot, and the audience only had enough time to register that the Enterprise was shooting a lot of weapons. There are good reasons several of the movies have long, slow, luxurious shots of the ship sitting in space dock or cruising through a nebula -- it's pretty, and it helps establish the ship as an intrinsic part of the setting.

In fact, it was funny because usually when I walk out of action films several of my friends complain about "shakey cam" action sequences that I thought were fine. But in this movie I hated them because I could barely tell what was going on. That skydiving scene you've seen in the trailers is about the only spot where Abrams let you see the action, instead of just flashing past it. Abrams, you've got an unlimited effects budget -- let me see your effects!

There are a lot of loopholes in the plot. SciFiWire did a good job of listing them, so I'll just refer you to their article. For the most part these didn't bother me (except for #4) because this is the sort of film where you're mostly along for the ride, and I didn't need it to be perfect.

And SciFiWire didn't even list the biggest falacy of the story, where Kirk goes from looser frat boy to cadet to lieutenent to 1st officer to captain of the flagship of the fleet in 3 years. As we all know, the careers of all the Enterprise officers stall out at this stage and they get stuck in their roles until they're old and grey, and I accept that as just part of the setting.

I'm looking forward to seeing where this universe goes next. They broke so hard from the original continuity that they can do anything they want and it doesn't have to tie into anything that's come before. I have a hard time believing that Kirk's next orders went like this: "Congratulations on your meteoric rise and your captaincy of our newest, best ship. Now that you've saved the Federation, your next assignment is to commence forthwith to sector 1173 and catalog gaseous anomalies for the next 6 weeks." No, this crew is only good for space operatic adventure, and I think they're going to be sent from one Federation trouble spot to the next to take on the toughest assignments.

Live long and prosper, Trek 2.0.

Beam me up, beam me down

Fri, 08 May 2009 19:57:59 GMT

Today's best Star Trek review comes from..... The Onion!

The Internet Strikes Back!

Thu, 07 May 2009 18:38:54 GMT

You know those robocalls that every single phone in America has recieved about how your car warranty is about to expire? Which is, in fact, a scam?

Someone on Reddit social engineered one of the offending company's phone number and eventually Reddit-ers figured out the entire extention tree at the offending company. This led to a deluge of calls by pissed off folks, drowning the phone lines of Auto One Warranty Specialists with such creative offers as extended warranty coverage for the computers the company uses.

One of my coworkers just tried calling the number. Unsurprisingly, it's been disconnected.