LJ lays off 20 some fraction of 28 employees- last day Friday, no severance.

http://valleywag.gawker.com/5124184/the-russian-bear-slashes-a-social-network

[eta: a few corrections at http://azurelunatic.livejournal.com/6225487.html - valleywag's numbers may be incorrect, but still: the news isn't so great.]

http://hewgill.com/ljdump/ is the backup program I use, it gets all posts and comments in one go (and only re-downloads changes, if you run it multiple times). Python script, tested on linux and mac 10.4)

Sigh. What next?...

I knocked 11 things off my to-do list today. Tracks tells me I did 25 in the last 24 hours.

Now I have *only one* that's overdue by more than a week, and it was due back in July.

All of these due-dates are self-imposed. Still, the two stalest items were a huge relief to finally do. (One was start a google group to restart a conversation about FGC and Queer Quakers, which I had promised to do in July; this is a huge relief to get underway again. The other was to remind a local service agency I have a pile of computer equipment I'd like to donate.)

In the last 24 hours I added something like 40 new items, though 1/3 of these were music I want to buy, reminders of things I'm waiting on, and a few "someday" items. And some aren't actionable yet, but I still wanted to note them.

This afternoon I went back through my last four months of daily journal, and turned as many of those into action-items as felt necessary. Before today, I hadn't twigged to the fact that I really should be going through that every week or so, according to the GTD model. And yes, it was freeing, to get them into one master-list.

I think there might be (at least) two kinds of successfully organized people: one sort who is reassured to have everything in their brain, and wouldn't want to trust any sort of external system; and the other who in the end is reassured to have it all down in front of them.

The second variety is the kind I am, and it's one reason why GTD clicks with me.

This feels fairly over-sharing, which is why I'm not actually talking more about what's on the lists (though I'm probably happy to share if you have questions).

I seem to have 23 LJ posts in the queue. I wonder how many of them will ever finish baking.

I just took a look at http://www.livejournal.com/misc/expunged_list.bml.

da2k da12en and da5 are all available. Do any of them jump out at you as a better name for me than da_lj? (At one time I was thinking of trebucher, but not only does it lack the accent to be correctly spelled, it's also prone to be confused, even though it's a cool word: trébucher: to trip, stumble)

In other news, I want a new default icon, but I can't decide whether to go photo, abstract, or manipulated photo.

*sharpens pencils, straightens desk*

*looks up*

I had an odd thought recently; how people my age often rely on their parents and other older relatives to not be net-savvey. What would happen if that crazy aunt of yours [1] started commenting in your LJ?

Teens today: how do they feel about their parents being internet savvey? I expect they have much less of the luxury of assumed anonymity. And it works both ways- how many teens have googled their families? Old usenet posts? Growing up with google is an odd thing. Imagine finding your 50-year-old uncle's angst-ridden poetry from when he was a teenager... (I mean, that's always happened, especially in close families or in smaller towns when everyone was in everyone else's business... but the potential seems much greater now). Weirdness.

At the same time, what about the relatives you get along with, but you're just not friends? The internet is a great leveler; after all. What about relatives who would probably be interested in your life to the extent you shared it with them; but there's this barrier. Partly due to the age difference; partly family dynamics, partly any number of other things.

On the positive side, I wonder how many people became better friends with family members via the internet. It's so great at joining people who are looking for friends/relationships/whatever. I wonder if it could make families have better connections too. Or it could be intensely awkward.

I'm also thinking about the families where there are fewer of the standard barriers; parents socializing with their kids at parties, talking about anything they'd talk about with friends... How that feels... inspiring, yet odd to me. I've got this strong default-assumption that people will want their privacy; it makes me less open than I might otherwise be. How do these families negotiate what feels appropriate or inappropriate to talk about? I suppose the same way any friends do..

Anyway, a few thoughts on this lazy Saturday afternoon. Whoop, evening.

[1] because everyone has a crazy aunt. Or uncle. Ask melted_snowball about the story; it's a really good one. :)

Also: unpacking: I found an unlabeled DVD in my bags from NYC and it took me a few minutes to realize it was made by my uncle Leon; it's an hour of my grandmother and her three elder sisters talking with each other about the old days. It's a real treasure, and I'm very happy he transferred the interview from video. (and it's really fun to watch my grandmother interact with her sisters as siblings; they bickered like teenagers, even though they were all well over 85 years old. :)

Big props to the LJ crew for their hard work. I've been thinking of subscribing for a while, and this was the kick-in-the-pants I needed to do it.

Yesterday I finally got around to finishing the seat and back of the rocking chair that d. got for Christmas from his parents. I'll try and put up pics sometime this week. Looks pretty good. And it's comfey, too. Next I get to put mine together, yay.

Today, we were in Toronto, ostensibly to buy snow-shoes, which we've been saving the money for, since last christmas, but we've STILL not gotten around to buying... Alas, Mountain Equipment Co-Op (a canadian REI) didn't have them in-stock at the store we visited, and by that point we were cold from wandering the downtown, so we came back without them. Again. Sigh. They are sold locally, but more expensively. Sigh.

But we did pick out d's christmas present to me, a necktie that we both could stand (which was sort of fun). And I scored a VU Meter from a surplus electronics store on Queen Street, which I'm gonna turn into a geeky project (which I'll blog about if it works).

We had an Aha moment. So, to start with, Canadians seem to obey Don't Walk signs considerably better than Americans do, even in cities like Toronto. I've always wondered how this happens- do Canadian parents just do a better job drilling it into their kids, just like politeness (*)? Turns out that at least in part, the answer is: public ridicule. We crossed a street against a light (being the only people doing so) and this young girl (about 8) said loudly, "but how come THEY can cross and you said we can't?" Her mom's response was equally loud (and, I think, humourously exaggerated; at least I hope so) "Because they're bad people honey." We were laughing for a few blocks afterward...

(*) This difference isn't small. Since moving here, I've noticed that kids in Canada will ask before they start petting our dog, while when we're in the US, they've just started petting her. Also, there is an expectation of "please" and "thank you" that seems to work much better than in the US, too.

Life is Change, and woe to those who can't deal with that.

I ran across this philosophy stated in stronger terms, that God is Change, but I won't go so far as to suggest that right now. Maybe later when I'm in an Octavia Butler mood. That post will probably have a lot to do with Internal versus External Locus of Control. But this entry is instead about obsolescence.

Three signs of change that prolly ought to piss me off but don't this morning, in order of increasing amusement value:

On a personal level, the Internet just got more complicated for both me and my brother Zack. Our mother started reading my journal. Long story short, I talked with her and we worked out that it was awkward enough that I didn't want her reading it, but I'd email her more instead. Then, she found cyanpill my brother and the results weren't pretty. Objectively, I think, there are some mom-alarm-worthy moments in his journal, but hell, the guy's 22, of course there will be (if they're going to be posted in a public journal). So he's gone friends-only posts. Mom hasn't told him she won't read his. So it's rather messy. It's leading to all kinds of interesting talks in my family at least, but it's definitely an off-kilter way to have them. So far, neither of us in my household are switching to friends-only posts, but I now have reason to consider it.

On a more interpersonal level, in the last 12 hours, my personal email address got 111 spam messages that got through spamassassin (version 2.64). I'm a patient guy, but ~175 a day aren't worth wading through. I considered killing the address completely, but I like the domain, and I was there first. So I'm going to lower my spam threshold and consider killing the address completely if that and similar fixes don't work. It's surprising to me, since taking a "regular job", the number of previously unquestionable assumptions I can now question, since I don't have to put so much work energy into finding and keeping clients myself. (Can I move my server in-house and save $100US/month? Do I need to answer email at so many addresses? Do I need a cell-phone? Do I need a PO box in Ithaca for business mail? and so on.) Every change I've made has felt freeing, and simplification is good.

On a not-at-all connected to me level, seems to me that Microsoft's security model has got to be in trouble. It appears that any windows program that uses MSHTML is an attack vector, according to those who report such things.
So, if you run Windows (up through XP/Server 2003 including SP 2) better patch or unplug from the network. I think I no longer trust any argument that security works better in a closed company than in an open-source project. How many thousands of engineers, how many levels of security audits did their latest OSes go through? This looks like a pretty wide hole, at least to a relatively naive non-windows-programmer like me.

[backdated to when I think I wrote this version]

---

Well, I'll be, I never filled this in. Typical.

I'm an easily distracted linux consultant who doesn't really like making money.

No, wait.

I'm a Quaker seeker with particular interest in developing my understandings on living in a simple manner, with integrity, in peace with nature and humanity.

No, wait.

I'm a geek who doesn't role-play, watch anime, play FPS, or collect "early adopter" toys. But many of my friends do, and I appreciate hearing about these sometimes. Espeically cool early adopter toys that work.

I wish I got out more, and I wish I socialized more. I wish I knew more people with a similar intersection of interests to mine. I wish I could more often be in the same physical location as my friends. I wish everybody I wanted to stay in touch with was on livejournal.

...But I'm glad you are, if you're reading this.

Wondering how you're connected to da_lj?

Use this:

LiveJournal Connect! Enter your username in the left box, someone else's username (or a * for a random one) in the right box, and press the button! -> Quiet Mutual 2 chains No 1-hop Coded by sachmet

How to find me (friends-locked; give a shout at the above email address if you're not on my friends list and you'd like to be!)

... and indeed, it is just as easy to post using centericq. It even stores my outgoing entry when I quit the program. Lots of behaviours follow the principle-of-least surprise, and I really like the simple interface.

So, then, why did I bother changing the default background on my lj page, much as, why am I writing a *second* entry?

Perhaps the answer is a contradiction of my first answer- I might have bugger all to write, after all.

It was distinctly gratifying to discover that three of the five people I put onto my friends-list immediately put me on theirs. The other two can be excused; one had never met me (I've only known of him through my partner, d, though I'm sure I'd like him if we ever meet). And the other person is, I understand, pretty darn busy.

So, you'll excuse me while I go and fill in some more of my profile, and go see if I can find other friends of mine around lj.

OK, so I'm sitting in front of my computer on a wonderful September morning and writing an article in this spankin' new journal, and why? Why, you ask? Not because I've got bugger all to say to the world (hah!). But, rather, because I'm testing out this program, "centericq", which basically turns live journal into Pine (the email
client).

And I was purely curious if it's as easy to post as it is to browse friends' journals.