"Feed Reader Slaughter" written by Jim on estrip.org

10/23/08 08:40 - 38ºF - ID#46268

Feed Reader Slaughter

I have been trying to follow the principle of 'inbox 0' (background:

). Basically, you get to zero messages in your inbox at least once per day. Ruthlessly, if need be. It forces you to decide if you're really going to need to respond to something, to really think about how you're going to spend your communication time.

For a few months I've been using that system, and found it incredibly useful. Then a week ago I realized that the tyranny of my mail has always paled in comparison to the beast that is my feed reader.

So, I went through my feed reader and deleted all the feeds that update daily or that are only momentarily useful. I'm down to 60 feeds from over 200. The 60 that are left are the ones that update occasionally, and have a very high signal to noise ratio.

It was taking about an hour or two every night to sift through them all and get to 0 unread. It feels nice to be able to do that in 5 or 10 minutes today. I am missing out on some really awesome random information, but the good stuff that I really need to know still finds its way to me.

The downside is fewer random interesting links to post into the (e:strip) chat.

Permalink: Feed_Reader_Slaughter.html
Words: 221
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: internets

10/21/08 08:22 - 47ºF - ID#46224

CHILD ABUSE

Don't ever dress your daughter up as Gallagher :)

Read all about it:

Permalink: CHILD_ABUSE.html
Words: 26
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: work

10/20/08 09:49 - 58ºF - ID#46219

Pair Programming Starts Tomorrow

More work stuff - I need to fill my daily journal quota!

We've got our automated testing down pretty well at work, so on to the next step. We start pair programming every single day in the afternoons tomorrow. It will be interesting to see how this goes, if we can make a habit of it. It's the best way to learn.

(

- pair programming )

We aren't going to do it full time, as the linked page suggests, but even part time should be very, very useful. I've learned to hate silo-style development. Everyone on a team should share ownership of every single line of code. There should not be anywhere that a developer fears to tread.

It's a little bit scary to work so closely with someone, the times that I've paired in the past - you have to fumble around and show your inadequacies, but it's worth it when you teach each other new things and hash out designs before they're halfway done. Code is easy to change as you're speaking about it and hard to change later.

The alternative - well, it is very nice to work alone and polish your work before you show it to other people, but it's just not as communicative in the end. I totally go off in the weeds when working alone.

We're going to rotate the pairs - most of the time it will be one Ruby expert paired with one former Fox Pro programmer who is learning Ruby, but is a domain expert in the software. It should be a good match. Everyone will work with everyone though, just to make sure we can all talk together.

Code reviews are coming, probably next month, too.

So the arc looks like -

Phase I - automated test suite: TDD and feature stories.

Phase II - pair programming.

Phase III - weekly team code reviews.

I love my job so much. I love love love it.

Permalink: Pair_Programming_Starts_Tomorrow.html
Words: 332
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: estrip

10/19/08 09:51 - 36ºF - ID#46188

Close Your Eyes and Do It For England

I donated $40 last night to the campaign to defeat Proposition 8 in California (Prop 8 will remove the constitutional gender-indiscriminant right to marry, and nullify existing same sex marriages in CA). I'm hoping that James and I can go there next year and get married. Either there, or Connecticut.

We are upstanding citizens, we pay our taxes, don't hurt anyone, and just want to be able to rely on the legal system to acknowledge that we can make decisions for each other in times of crisis. We're not trying to undermine other families. I don't know how we could.

Someone linked to this on Twitter, and it convinced me to donate:

Yikes.

is the link, if you're interested in donating, too.

jim writes at 09:51:46 10/20/08 - Comment #40606: I want to get married in my own country. I don't want to feel like a fugitive.

drew writes at 01:10:49 10/20/08 - Comment #40566: Why not Canada? Some friends of mine went there to wed.

james writes at 10:38:15 10/20/08 - Comment #40559: I fucking hate people.

dragonlady7 writes at 12:12:35 10/19/08 - Comment #40511: So I was at a roller derby leaguemate's house last night and found out she was from Connecticut, and congratulated her on her state legalizing gay marriage. "Really!" she said. (She's lived in Cheektowaga for 13 years, so she doesn't exactly have her finger on the pulse of Hartford at this point.) "How funny. CT is odd because it's so liberal on some things, but Puritan on others." "Oh exactly," I said. "That's New England. Nobody ever gets to be drunk or naked ever ever, but equal rights for all!!!"

I sort of love New England and sort of hate it. (I grew up on the MA/VT/NY border, right where they all kinda intersect.)

jim writes at 11:53:35 10/19/08 - Comment #40509: Al-Gayda: Gay terrorists! With rainbow bombs!

paul writes at 11:52:26 10/19/08 - Comment #40508: That is so ridiculous. I hope terrorists show up at Qualcomm.

jim writes at 11:38:43 10/19/08 - Comment #40507: If you believe you have God on your side, then your own prejudices become God's prejudices. There is no compromise when you believe you speak on *behalf* of God.

tinypliny writes at 11:32:47 10/19/08 - Comment #40506: REALLY? Can rational people even see a reason to this madness? How in the world did this prop 8 whatever even get drafted? It represents the core of discrimination. It is as sickening as racism. How can people exhibit such intolerance in as diverse a country as US? It is bewildering to me that a country that is far far ahead in scientific accomplishment in the whole of the planet is so woefully and culturally nescient and steeped in dark-age double-standards.

tinypliny writes at 11:21:51 10/19/08 - Comment #40505: That video was so lunatic I couldn't watch it for more than 10 second. PUKE.

And really, this is why this country is in such major trouble - crszy, insular bigots whose effective brain is the size of a peanut. :/

Permalink: Close_Your_Eyes_and_Do_It_For_England.html
Words: 132
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: work

10/18/08 08:04 - 49ºF - ID#46182

Pseudo-Promotion

I am now the head of Rails development at my work, so I'm coordinating 6 developers. Three new to Rails, and two who are new to the company, and myself. It's actually pretty awesome to be running the projects. I get to be the face of our development team to all the executives and our parent company in Boston.

It's not really a promotion in the sense of title change, more of a coordinator role (still spend 80% of my own time writing code), but it's going to be nice when I have my yearly review next April to be able to claim credit for how nice things are going.

The best part of the job? Saying no to stupid things before they are forced upon us.

We're digging into a ground-up rewrite of one of our core products, an evaluation tool for Physical Therapy students. It's going much smoother then I had anticipated, although two of the guys we thought we'd have had on the project months ago are only now able to lay down Visual Studio and Fox Pro and join us.

There are two other ongoing projects too, so 3 things to keep tabs on and moving forward, plus all the training. Training devs is nice - another way to shape the company culture and make sure that we're doing things the same way. They really like Ruby over Fox Pro - big surprise :)

Thank God for the ADD drugs. I'd be hanging myself otherwise.

Permalink: Pseudo_Promotion.html
Words: 247
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: starwars

10/16/08 10:21 - 50ºF - ID#46148

Episode 7?

(source / more in the series:

)

Permalink: Episode_7_.html
Words: 11
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: politics

10/16/08 09:15 - 54ºF - ID#46139

McCain - Last Debate

What McCain said is not going to play well among independents. Virtually everyone thinks that there should always be exceptions for the mother's health. McCain was very dismissive and used air quotes.

Liberals say that a majority of Americans support abortion rights, and conservatives that a majority don't. The fine print in all that is that a majority support early abortions and oppose late abortions - so it's just how you phrase it in your campaign spots, I suppose.

Personally that's me, pretty much, I am OK with first trimester abortions, and progressively less at ease after that, and by the third trimester I think it's OK to heavily restrict abortions, as long as there are exceptions for rape/health. Which is pretty much what the Supreme Court has decided, right?

paul writes at 07:14:02 10/18/08 - Comment #40485: Like I said, I am pro-abortion. Only under the "extreme circumstances" of actually being able to care for the baby - should they not abort.

gardenmama writes at 08:02:47 10/16/08 - Comment #40373: I found him painfully dismissive on the health of the mother issue. That's a really hard one for me to wrap my head around. Of course, if the Supreme Court ever overturns Roe v Wade, that too would become a health of the mother issue for all women who couldn't afford to leave the country to go elsewhere for safe, legal abortion. Back to butchers, alleys, and coathangers, and young and poor women dying from hemmorage and infection - now there's a plan.

tinypliny writes at 10:09:30 10/16/08 - Comment #40340: Does McCain think "health of the mother" is some fictional roadblock to their party's crazy agenda? Good grief. This bloke doesn't even know what the heck he is talking about. :(

tinypliny writes at 10:03:22 10/16/08 - Comment #40338: Hehehe, I was around 1.2 kg (2.6 lb) when I was born, >1 month premature. People thought I was a a big rat when they looked at my incubator because I was apparently very hairy in addition to being small and ugly. Nothing much has changed even now. LOL

tinypliny writes at 09:57:57 10/16/08 - Comment #40337: Good to know they got medical advice on this one. Back home, the "viable" age is 20 weeks ((e:tinypliny,46006) ), nevermind that many babies dont't make it past 1-2 years because of malnutrition and poor care. :(

jim writes at 09:46:45 10/16/08 - Comment #40336: "Roe v. Wade centrally held that a mother may abort her pregnancy for any reason, up until the "point at which the fetus becomes â€˜viable.â€™" The Court defined viable as being potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability usually occurs at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks." The Court also held that abortion after viability must be available when needed to protect a woman's health, which the Court defined broadly in the companion case of Doe v. Bolton. These rulings affected laws in 46 states."

- Summary of Roe v Wade ( :::link::: )

tinypliny writes at 09:42:37 10/16/08 - Comment #40335: That's the medical viewpoint as well. Has the supreme court ruled on this?

Permalink: McCain_Last_Debate.html
Words: 138
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: internets

10/14/08 07:16 - 67ºF - ID#46116

POWERTHIRST

Permalink: POWERTHIRST.html
Words: 7
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: apple

10/14/08 09:16 - 68ºF - ID#46104

HAPPY APPLE DAY

Sources:

I'm hoping there is progresses towards my dream laptop, for purchase in 2010(?):

MacBook Air, 4gb RAM, 256gb SSD, Dual-DVI out - or better on any of those features.

Permalink: HAPPY_APPLE_DAY.html
Words: 42
Location: Buffalo, NY

Category: politics

10/13/08 02:56 - 71ºF - ID#46094

Response to Joshua

I have personally been accosted on the street in at least 5 occasions by conservatives. In Buffalo, NY, Salt Lake City, UT, and Portland, OR. In addition, protestors have been at events that I've attended an additional dozens of times.

So: conservatives never shout down liberals? You've never seen protestors yelling at a gay pride parade? You've never seen conservative marches on Washington that vilify and call for the destruction of the left? You can't dismiss them as not being conservative, because the religious right and the hawks are a core constituency of conservative power.

What you're doing would be like me condemning all conservatives just because the conservatives who go to the effort to show up at a Palin rally call Obama a terrorist. Just because conservatives attack me in the street.

If I were to judge conservatives by the most outspoken among them, I would be forced to conclude that they are incapable of making an argument that wasn't based on emotions, hated anyone who wasn't just like themselves, and that all conservatives think you're unpatriotic and a terrorist sympathizer or faggot if you disagree with them.

Luckily, I don't judge conservatives by the worse among them.

The right is getting angrier and angrier, now that they're out of power. McCain-Palin rallies demonstrate this. Who do you think is going to be protesting in the streets these next 8 years? It's going to swing as the pendulum of power swings. You're just used to seeing the left out of power, not in it.

I do accuse you of cherry picking and painting with too broad a brush. You can't see any incident without taking it as confirmation about what you already believe and are predisposed to think about groups of people. It drives me crazy.

UPDATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHICAL EVIDENCE OF CONSERVATIVES PROTESTING ME

I HAVE THUS SUCCESSFULLY PROVED THAT ALL CONSERVATIVES ARE MEAN SPIRITED LOL

heidi writes at 07:32:33 10/13/08 - Comment #40195: I just want to underscore (e:Lauren) & (e:Jim)'s point questioning a distinction between sexual orientation and political ideology.... The personal is political...

(e:Joshua) - How do you describe the Republicans outside and inside the Florida election offices where the recounts were happening in 2000? I've mostly seen them described as a MOB trying to prevent the careful process of counting ballots. With just that one super-important example, your argument that Republicans are somehow better behaved than liberals goes out the window. And then there's the well documented polling place intimidation, the removal of qualified voters from voter lists...

I'm not at all saying that election and political ugliness is reserved for Republicans. Let's look at Jim Crow laws in the South, or the literacy tests used to prevent Blacks from voting, or... our history - up to today - is replete with examples.

metalpeter writes at 07:26:26 10/13/08 - Comment #40193: I don't want to speak for (e:Joshua) I think he was at first trying to find out if Jim was attacked for being gay or for his political beliefs but I'm not sure. I do know that I was a little bit confused my self. I think the reason why he wanted to make that distinction is because being homophobic or thinking homosexuality is wrong is only a left/right or Demo/republican thing. There are people who don't like gays in every party and every political outlook.

I said something along these lines in my response to (e:joshua)'s post. One thing that people have to consider is location. Location is a big Factor. For example I go to a hockey game in Toronto and Have a Sabres Jersey a few fans might hackle me and make my life tough a little bit, But I where that to a Flyers game, I would be killed or most likely attacked or hit with something, it would be very dangerous (I assume that is still true). If I was a New Yorker out trying to enjoy my day and all of a sudden there is a politcal Rally and it is for some one I like I would chear and call my buddies and take pictures but people I don't like get in my way they get yelled at and get the finger, isn't that the New York way.

lauren writes at 05:59:55 10/13/08 - Comment #40186: "The right is getting angrier and angrier, now that they're out of power. McCain-Palin rallies demonstrate this. Who do you think is going to be protesting in the streets these next 8 years? It's going to swing as the pendulum of power swings. You're just used to seeing the left out of power, not in it."

I think that this is a really good point Jim. We really need to consider WHY people are angry and that anger most often comes out of fear and vulnerability. People rarely (if ever) give up privileges and I don't think the conservatives will go down without a fight.

Also, as hinted in the sarcasm of your final statement, I think this whole "republicans" "democrats" nonsense is silly and ultimately unproductive. I hate to say it (especially during this crucial time) but democrats and republicans are pretty much the same.

oh and (e:joshua) I want to make it very clear that your "distinction" between sexual preference and political ideology is seriously lacking. I'm not ever sure what your point is. That you can't "see" someone's politics? What about when you can't "see" someone's sexuality? What about when someone says some homophobic shit to me cause I "look" straight? And I question your focus on the fanatics or "Jesus Freaks" as different that your average person walking down the street. Do these people really have that different of ideals that others who don't show up to these rallies? Would you be that surprised if random person X started spouting anti-gay nonsense if they thought you agreed?

This was intended to be a short comment :)

jim writes at 04:55:35 10/13/08 - Comment #40179: Said to me, wearing a kerry shirt in '04:

"If you want to vote for those dems, you should just leave the country since you hate it so much."

That is concrete, that is real. Said to my face, unprovoked, by a conservative. It happens all the time, not on Elmwood sure or in NYC, but in Salt Lake City, (to me, that time). In the south, in rural areas.

It might not be as organized, but it's just as angry and confrontational.

james writes at 04:53:29 10/13/08 - Comment #40176: wait, so it is appropriate to be a dick at things like gay pride parades or rallies because they are scheduled.

But it is not appropriate to yell the same things at a passing parade?

jim writes at 04:48:47 10/13/08 - Comment #40173: Those times I was referencing being personally confronted weren't at gay rallies. I mentioned that in a previous comment.

I am talking purely just walking down the street minding my own business.

jim writes at 04:43:49 10/13/08 - Comment #40172: My argument is theoretical? My argument is explicitly concrete. What are you talking about?

Yes, Joshua, two of those times it was for mildly political t-shirts that I was wearing (ie, generically pro-democrat), while otherwise minding my business.

joshua writes at 04:13:43 10/13/08 - Comment #40168: If you were accosted on the street, was it because people were picking on your sexual preference or your political ideology? Which is it? If you are telling me that people have randomly come up to you out of the shadows to belittle your faith in liberal orthodoxy, I'm skeptical.

I know damn well you guys deal with a lot of BS from people at gay rallies, and I'm sure they have all kinds of colorful names for you. I've lambasted those people in the past - we all know they are evil people. You said I can't dismiss them as not being conservative - actually Jim I never did anything of the sort. I was interested in your comment about a stereotypical characterization of conservatives though. You're suggesting that the video I posted was cherry picking when it was ridiculously obvious that it wasn't... which is exactly why I posted it. You're building your argument of contrasts and comparisons on a case that can't be made credibly. This wasn't a rally, it wasn't a campaign stop, it wasn't a protest - it occurred on the streets of Manhattan's UWS. Find me a non-rally, non-campaign stop, non-protest example that can be paired with what I've posted and we'll talk. Otherwise I'm not comparing apples to oranges.

And the answer to your first question is no, for the reasons I've already explained in the comments section of my journal. It isn't a matter of being blind - it's a matter of understanding the political DNA of the people you are talking about. There is always an example of one asshole out of many, but as a rule the GOP don't behave like caged animals in the same way that liberals do, and it is a well-established method of expressing their views that liberals have clung to since the Vietnam War. The GOP is not the party of the loud-mouthed protester/activist nor will it ever be. Your argument is theoretical and mine is not. You are making the mistake of believing that liberals and conservatives behave in the same manner. It is not true, nor has it ever been true in America!

I still find it curious that no self-avowed liberals can acknowledge what they've seen in the video I've posted.

jim writes at 03:29:20 10/13/08 - Comment #40164: So, you would say in very conservative areas no one would ever yell anything at someone wearing an Obama t-shirt, just walking down the street? You are blind.

My photo is of a conservative protestor at a parade, yes, but the times that I reference being accosted on the street, I was just on the street and randomly harrassed by strangers. Randomly. On the street. By passers-by. Thank you very much.

So - who am I going to believe, you or my lying eyes? I've lived through what you dismiss, and I can tell you, you are wrong. I know this from what I've personally seen and had to deal with, not something off of youtube.

joshua writes at 03:25:18 10/13/08 - Comment #40162: Jim, you're being entirely too simplistic. I've already made the distinction between what you are talking about and the everyday man on the street that the McCain/Palin supporters were dealing with on the Upper East Side. It's an important distinction that can't be ignored. The people you are highlighting are the craziest among them, and the people you saw in my video are everyday people on the street. You can't credibly compare the two, Jim, because of obvious reasons, the most obvious being the differences between a Jesus Freak specifically showing up at gay rallies and those just walking down the street in NYC.

Permalink: Response_to_Joshua.html
Words: 319
Location: Buffalo, NY