xb95 | Recent Entries

[21:16] < wmoss> #server can anyone think of a way to print all lines that have two or more commas? without removing all the data? [21:16] < wmoss> I worried this requires awk :( [21:18] hm [21:18] cat test | perl -ni -e '$n=$_; print $n if (s/[^,]//g && length($_) >= 2);' [21:19] < erin> mark: haha, I don't know if that's better than awk :P [21:19] well, [21:19] it's certainly less awk-ward [21:20] < erin> perl-ward [21:20] oh come on, nobody liked the pun? [21:20] < erin> !m mark [21:20] < bumpbot> you're doing good work, mark! [21:20] I expected things to be thrown [21:20] < dowski> !clap mark [21:20] * bumpbot claps quietly for mark, profoundly unimpressed. [21:20] wmoss: ^^ btw [21:23] < wmoss> yup [21:23] < wmoss> !thank mark [21:23] < bumpbot> you're doing good work, mark! [21:23] < erin> wmoss: why can't you just do [21:23] < erin> grep ".*,.*,.*" ? [21:23] erin .. might have won this round [21:23] < wmoss> indeed

Wherein Mark and Will come up with a solution to identify lines with more than one comma and are proud, then Erin comes in and totally destroys them.

Well played, Erin, well played.

The FAA has seen fit to grant me an Airman Medical Certificate 3rd Class. Yes, folks, this means that soon I will be flying a little airplane around all by my lonesome... now the only thing between me and becoming a pilot is to time and money! Oh, and lots and lots of training, a test, and an FAA check-ride.

Soon, soon...! My instructor says I'm doing fantastic and am pretty close to soloing. I can't tell you how excited I am!

Okay, I can tell you: pretty damn excited. I was so worried about the whole medical process. It's been eating my brain pretty hard and I've had to force myself to stop worrying. I also really expected it to take longer, since the AOPA and everything I read online said it would be months and they're probably deny me and I'd have to appeal (more months).

Instead, I got a letter yesterday that said: "Mark Smith, you are ineligible for a medical certificate as per FAR parts blah blah blah... but I am going to issue a special issuance authorization..." In short, technically I'm not eligible but they've given me an exception (until 2019) that allows my Airman Medical Examiner (AME) to issue me a certificate as long as certain conditions haven't been met. (In essence, as long as my health gets no worse and my medication doesn't change.)

Of course, I still have to go in yearly for re-authorization (instead of the normal every-5-years cycle for under-40s), but at least I am allowed to fly. This is huge and awesome.

Yesssss!

Yay. My proposed talk "Sowing the Seeds of Diversity" for YAPC::NA 2013 has been accepted! I'm excited and looking forward to seeing lots of Dreamwidth folks and other industry friends in Austin. It should be a good time. :)

Update time.

For the past two months or so I've been working on getting my private pilot's license. This is pretty rad and I've been having an amazing time. (For the record: when I eventually get it, anybody who is in the area is welcome to come up with me. I'll be totally looking for excuses to go up and fly -- and taking people on Bay Area tours is an awesome excuse, and I will never get tired of seeing it from the sky.)

I'm almost at the point where I can solo. My instructor is very happy with my progress and has been letting me do a lot of the flying. She's really awesome and I work with her really well. We're still waiting on the FAA to get back to me on my medical certification, though. I got "deferred" because of my ankylosing spondylitis and ... drumroll ... high blood pressure.

The HBP has been something I've had for years. It's usually in the 150/100 range whenever I get checked -- yeah, yeah, that's high. The FAA has a limit of 155/95 though, and I failed the test in the medical examiner's office. It's OK though, as long as it's being actively treated by a doctor. They just want to know that you're being observed and such.

Well, "actively treated" means I had to see someone about it. That's annoying, since I'm not very comfortable with doctors to begin with (white coat hypertension is also a strong reason I have HBP at the doctor's office!). I went to my GP about it and he wanted to talk about medication, but I asked about other approaches. (I didn't feel he was pushing medication, but I felt that he assumed -- from experience -- that people aren't very good about diet/exercise changes and would rather pop a pill.)

I ruled out medication partially because if you go on BP meds, the FAA process for getting your medical becomes pretty hard -- they require stress tests and EKGs (or so the Internet says). I figured it'd be easier to try a diet based approach, so for the past month or so I've been on a low sodium diet. My target is about 1200mg/day -- which is really low when you consider the sodium contents of most standard American food.

A slice of bread (ONE slice) has 100mg+. One pickle is over 1000mg! Forget ham. Candy bars are bad. In fact, that local deli that sells sandwiches? Yeah, one of those is 2000mg. Soda is out. Swiss cheese is basically the only kind of cheese that is possibly fine and even that's a stretch. Most everything that I usually eat is forbidden and I had to completely restructure my diet.

Thanks, though, to aposiopetic who is ever-vigilant and amazing. She researched a bunch and revamped our stores of food at the house. We're now eating lots better, eating out a lot less, and she's even packing lunches for me so that I don't have to go out to eat when I'm at work. (Without her, I would not be doing nearly as well on the diet.)

Even so, it's super stressful for me. She doesn't abide by the diet so strictly, so she can have pickles and more cheese and bread and such. That's OK, though, really the problem is when I drive by In'n'Out or something and I smell the burgers and fries. It's really hard not to just stop in and order something. Really hard. I have managed to control myself thus far, though, but I don't know. Maybe one day I will snap and it will all go bad. (Hah.)

The results so far though: lost 10 pounds (eating less and better) and my BP seems to be a little lower. It's hard to tell what it would be at the doctor's office, though, so I will just have to wait and see. I'm supposed to go back in June and check in. Meh.

...

In other news, I should really write in here more.

Yesterday I was looking for some stuff in my office and came across an envelope with familiar handwriting on it. "Huh, when did Janine send me something?" I thought and opened it up. Inside was the stamped "you are now divorced" paperwork from the state. I forgot that they had required us to give them self-addressed envelopes, so that's why I had a letter in Janine's handwriting. It was kind of a twinge of pain to see the paperwork, I have to admit, but that's life. It does mean I should go hang out with Janine again, though.

I'm going to get back to work now. I'll try to write more later.

Orbitz informed me a few weeks ago of a flight change, but I didn't read it very closely. Alas.

Apparently they moved my flight from Manila to Seoul later, so now I get an extra day in Manila, which is awesome. But then I get only about 12 hours (flight to flight, so more like 8 hours) in Seoul. Hrmph. What to do with a handful of hours...?

A very short summary of the past few days includes a walking tour of old Manila, with a very interesting history lesson by a very colorful and passionate teacher/tour guide. Then we went to Corregidor -- a WW2 fortress that was responsible for the Philippines being such a hard nut to crack -- and spent the night there. Fantastic. More later.

Tomorrow we fly to Bohol, an island in the Philippines, and will have some fun with resort/beach style adventuring. Then we return, have a day of hacking, and then go to tour the small volcano to the south. Then Sunday we'll probably do some local Manila touring/shopping/stuff.

Ok, more later.

So -- I'm about to fly out for LCA + visiting afuna + 36 hours in South Korea.

The LCA portion of the trip is scheduled and planned. I know exactly what I'm doing and when, just about, and it's all worked out. No worries or problems there, also, not much time to sightsee.

The Philippines portion of the trip is fairly scheduled, but has a few open days at the end that we're holding until we see how things are going and then decide what to do. That's fine, I know afuna will take care of me and not let me die!

However, the Seoul portion of the trip so far is unscheduled entirely. I don't have a hotel room, I have barely looked at the map, etc.

I'm considering -- and this is where you come in! -- leaving it that way. Showing up at the airport with my luggage and passport and just winging it. Finding maps at the airport, picking a direction, and setting off on transit. Going around in a loop until I see an interesting hotel and area, then hopping off and trying to check in. Asking around for interesting places to go and see. Entirely unscheduled and serendipitous.

I understand that means I may not see the XYZ the most famous LMNOP in all of QTH, but hey, it actually sounds kind of fun to just be lost. (I guess except that I might end up being mugged somewhere. I don't actually know how safe Seoul is, or if there are bad areas, or if I'd even recognize a bad area... presumably I would? I have no idea.)

Anyway -- am I totally crazy for considering this? :)

Yay, my LCA2013 tickets are booked, wherein I will be giving a tutorial on server and process debugging. That should be fun and interesting.

Also fun, though, is the actual trip I booked!

First San Francisco to Sydney wherein I will take a bus or train up to Canberra. I decided to do this because the travel from Sydney out looks gorgeous, particularly the trains -- if I can make that work, that's my goal.

After the conference, I fly to Manila to hang out with the amazing afuna! I will be there for the better part of a week. There will certainly be some hacking, but also visiting an Asian country for my first time ever!

Next, since it didn't add anything to the cost of the trip (I extended a layover!), I will be going to Seoul for a weekend and seeing what it's like in South Korea. (Also, Americans don't need a visa to visit!)

That's my plan. Now to book hotels and other things... ohboy!

Backstory: The lovely Ari is setting up an epistolary role-playing game. We know some people who aren't local who we love gaming with, but having a sit-down or LARP is really hard with remote people... so Ari decided to fix this. She's creating and soon will be running a game where the method of communication is letters.

As you might imagine, the game is being set in a time period where this makes sense. In this game, it's 100 years ago -- so it's currently 1912 in-game. I will be playing a surveyor working for the Department of the Interior, helping to catalog and survey parts of the US that will go on to be named National Parks.

At any rate, I'm always excited about projects, so I decided to have some fun for the game. I acquired an Underwood No. 5 typewriter, which started being manufactured around 1900. My particular model was actually made in 1929, but it's close enough. Only cost about $200 on eBay, which I figure is reasonable for this kind of thing. Of course, it was $200 because there were "a few issues" -- but I wagered I could fix them.

The main problems when I got it: the B key sticks and you have to reach in and pull down the striker (hammer? what's it called?), and the ribbon feed system doesn't work.

Today I put in a solid few hours of tearing down, cleaning, and investigating. I determined how to fix the B key (clean some parts, adjust the tension spring), and that works. The ribbon feed mechanism was a lot harder, though, but in the end I conquered it.

It turns out the left side of the typewriter had gotten some rust damage. Luckily it was minor enough that I could basically unstick the parts with some brute force (lots of very patient tapping with a screwdriver, basically), and then lots of cleaning with my gun cleaning solution, rags, etc. Then LOTS of exercising the joints to make sure everything would work.

I succeeded though, and the typewriter works! The ribbon feeds, the hammers all strike, everything is aligned well enough for my purposes. It's a really amazing feeling to use an old typewriter -- it makes such a satisfying sound.

Obligatory photo!

This is the time where I sit down and say who I voted for and why.

Since most of you are going to scroll down for the answer anyway, I'll save you the trouble: I voted for President Barack Obama to continue to lead the United States of America.

Ultimately for me, the decision came down to having more equal rights.

Last night Ari asked me, "What makes America great?" A fantastic question and we had a lot of discussion about it. Ultimately, the answer for me is opportunity. People come here because they want a change, they want the American Dream, they want something and believe that the US can offer it. Freedom, jobs, a better government, whatever the reason is.

Even those of us born here are blessed with a country that has more opportunity per square mile than most of the world. Yes, I realize that these days the western world is pretty equivalent, but it's still a theme here in this country -- and an idea that I embrace wholeheartedly.

And yet, Mitt Romney has explicitly stated that he wishes to take away some of the opportunities that are available here. He wants to take away things that we already have, and ensure we don't get things we've been trying to get! He wants to perpetuate the privilege divide that he and I, as white cisgendered males, have enjoyed for all of our lives.

Romney wants to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Romney supports the Defense of Marriage Act.

These two points alone, regardless of everything else, make Romney an untenable candidate for me. These points alone have dictated that I must not vote for Romney today. If what I say about opportunity is true, and I believe it is, then there is no way I can support a candidate who would take away the rights my friends have fought for -- the rights that they still fight for. I don't want to take steps backwards.

Every election is always difficult for me. I think that there are a lot of compelling reasons to choose the Republican party. I generally prefer their stance on almost every other issue, honestly -- but when it comes to the opportunity that this country (the country that I love!) affords to the people I care about? You can sign me up for the man who has stood up in front of this nation, while still President, and said:

"when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don't Ask Don't Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married." --President Barack Obama

Whatever else he might be, whatever else the Democrats might support, I think that it's important that my friends and family be afforded the same opportunity that I am.

President Obama has made a stand for more equal rights. President Obama has made a stand for what he believes in, regardless of how it might affect his re-election campaign. I respect that.

My name is Mark Smith, and I voted for more equal rights. I voted for Obama.

To my Ari, the most curious girl I know.

I wish we could have been together for the landing. Doing it online was the next best thing, though. I love you so much. I cannot express how full of the giddy and happy and smushy I am right now.

( big picture )

In Charlotte, NC (CLT) waiting for my flight to New Orleans (MSY).

Ari made me an icon of Oliver in his Dreamwidth-logo onesie. D'awwwwwwwwww. Hope you all enjoy. :)

The company I work for, Bump Technologies, has just this morning released our new application: Flock - Photos Together!

First: I am really, really excited about this launch. Like seriously.

Flock is one of those rare applications that really solves a problem people have. It takes something that, to this day, is really hard and annoying -- and practically makes it magical. It makes your life easier and more joyful, which is something that technology should be doing more of, but unfortunately doesn't.

Yes, I acknowledge my bias. Trust me though, if I wasn't really excited, I wouldn't take the time to write this here. But I am going to, because Flock is, in my opinion, just that good.

So, what does it do?

Let's talk about the typical way people share photos. Pretend you and some of your friends go out to get some food and see a concert. You each take some photos. When you get home, you want to share these photos with your friends -- well, thankfully Facebook exists! You each can upload your photos into galleries, fantastic!

Except... now each of you has a separate gallery. And Tom really is slow, he didn't upload his photos. "I'll get around to it", but you know that you'll still be waiting in a year -- if he ever remembers. Oh man, now you have to go share the gallery and hope that everybody sees it, and who the hell knows what stories Facebook chooses to show everybody... well, you can tag people so it emails them, but that's quite a bit of work!

Now you've spent three hours on this, longer than you spent at the concert! This entire workflow is a royal pain in the ass. It requires far too much human interaction and intervention and effort, and half of it never gets done.

Enter Flock: view my Flock event!

That is a web gallery that was assembled by Flock this morning. The people you see took photos with their phones, then they each got a notification from Flock (which they had previously installed): "Hey, you took some photos with Shona, Sunil, and others!"

That keys you to launch the Flock app, where it has already discovered that you took some photos near some of your friends. You can then select which photos you want to share and hit the button to do so. (You still have control over what you share!)

Your friends then get a notification that you've shared photos with them. Flock enables you to "like/+1/<3" the photos and also leave comments on them. This is shared with everybody who is on the album and you get push notifications so you can stay on top of things.

So, what actually happened here?

Without giving away too much of the secret sauce, the mojo is that Flock combines your Facebook information (people you know) with geographical information (where you took each photo). It combines this with all of your friends who use Flock to determine when you have taken photos together. It then pushes notifications down to you to let you know, and handles the heavy lifting of building a group photo album.

Instead of relying on everybody to upload photos, tag them, and then watching Facebook for them to appear -- that entire workflow is now reduced to the Magic Point: you don't have to figure out how to do it, Flock takes care of it. You still get total control and can share or not share as you like, but now you get to live your life as you like without all of the headaches of sharing photos between friends.

And before you ask: yes, this launch is iPhone only, and yes, it requires you to use and connect to Facebook. I know that rules out some of you, but for those of you who fit this bill... give it a whirl, let me know what you think.

Also, of course, Flock is only useful when people have it. Get your friends and family on it and see what happens. :)

Made friends with the flight attendants.

Dreamwidth now supports media hosting. Limited for now. More soon.

Short entry for now. I'm back from Wisconsin, which is a mixed bag. Mostly I'm happy to be home with my family again (first time I was really away from Oliver...it was sad!), but I am kind of sad that the conference is over. It was a very pleasant and surprisingly good conference.

I'll write more about it on mark later, but personally, I enjoyed it a lot. The keynote was a message that is near and dear to our hearts here on Dreamwidth (in short, promoting diversity) and there was a lot of talk about it later. The words "be nice!" were being bantered around a lot and I didn't see lots of over-the-top fail of various sorts I typically expect at tech conferences.

It really heartens me that the Perl community is starting to really talk about this stuff and make some progress on addressing it. Yeah, there's a million miles to go, and some of it is going to be hard and full of failure, but I have hope that we will make it happen.

Madison was a very pretty city -- it made me miss the midwest a lot. I really would like to get out of California, and yeah, I could totally go to the midwest. (Probably won't, but I totally could.) I didn't get to do a lot of stuff in the city on account of my lack of transportation and my body's very unhappy response to the whole thing (stupid body), but it was good nonetheless.

For now: bedtime. I must sleep.

My favorite feature of this code push is Markdown! Let's see if this works. PS, hi exor674!

On second thought, it's probably best if you don't come back, woeful tooths. I will go broke if I have to pay to pull you out every week.

...

I went to the oral surgeon today and did a review of my tooths. The funny thing is that I went in telling him I wanted the two on my left side removed, and then he launched into his spiel to try to convince me to have them removed.

Dr: "There is a lot of tissue swelling. This causes it to be really hard to clean, letting bacteria and food to get trapped back there, which can lead to gum and bone disease."
Me: "Yup."
Dr: "It's easier to get them removed when you're younger...if you wait, it becomes harder and harder for the body to get through the removal and recovery."
Me: "Yes...I am here to get them removed. You don't have to convince me."
Dr: "Oh, uh..."

I totally threw him for a loop; it was awesome! Anyway, it's scheduled for the 22nd and they're going to put me under for it so I am not really worried. I will have to find someone to watch Oliver though so Ari can drive me there and accompany me.

The only annoying thing is the cost. My medical bills are pretty exciting ... it seems like it's $500 every few weeks for this or that. Oh well.

I changed my default icon. Please don't be alarmed.

P.S. I love that clock in the background. It's a mechanical clock with exposed gears and it makes a delightful ticking sound and dings every hour. It has a big weight that I have to raise every day or two and adjust the time slightly. It's brilliant.

Went and saw my rheumatologist again today.

* Got my right knee drained. 150cc of inflamed synovial fluid. Let me tell you, it's a weird feeling having the secret sauce drained out of your knee and then feeling all of the muscles and things starting to relocate to fill the void that suddenly appears.

* The sulfasalazine doesn't seem to be doing as much as we'd hoped, so he wants to start me on methotrexate too. This is exciting. Methotrexate is commonly used in chemotherapy to treat various cancers, rheumatoid arthritis (of which my ankylosing spondilitis is a relative), and to perform chemical abortions. WTF.

* Oh, yes, and I need to take a folic acid supplement because the methotrexate murders that apparently and can cause some exciting things to happen. Oh and finally, I am banned from alcohol while on the new drug. It's not like I drink much, but I do from time to time. Sadness.

That's the update, I guess. Now my knee is sore and I'm angsty and sad and angry and all the normal things after going in and learning that, yup, my body is stupid and broken still.

Good times.

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Mark Smith

xb95.com

April 2013

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Mark Smith's Journal

A little place I like to call home.

Recent Entries

owned

Hurdled that, yo!

YAPC::NA talk accepted

Health and general updates

awkward

Am I crazy...? re: travel

LCA2013 tickets booked

The typewriter project

The 2012 election.

Curiosity landing

Hello from CLT :)

New icon!

The launch of Flock!

Hanging out in the cockpit :)

Hello world :)

back from Wisconsin

Test, test.

Wisdom teeth go away, come back another day...

Icon change

medical update

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April 2013

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