Recently I got an e-mail from a loose acquaintance, let’s say Vick Timlee,
Vick Timlee wants you to join Yaari!
Is Vick your friend?
Yes, Vick is my friend!No, Vick isn’t my friend.
Please respond or Vick may think you said no
Thanks,The Yaari Team
So, that’s a lie. Vick didn’t send me anything. He’s not waiting vulnerably for my attestation of our “friend”-ship.
What has happened is that he created an account on Yaari.com and they spammed everyone in his Gmail contacts. Further, they claimed that Vick sent these messages himself.
A nice blog post goes into this practice in more detail. The short of it is, stay away from Yaari.
I’m back from Seattle and Chicago. I may post about those trips. But I still haven’t posted about Montreal or DC, so it’s quite unlikely.
But I am posting about something relevant to my summer traveling: the nuisance of changing timezones on your devices as you cross them. For me I had to change my Mac system timezone and my Google Calendar timezone. I even had to change it on my Blackberry, which was particularly annoying because it knows from the network what timezone it’s in, but that’s separate from the issue here. My Blackberry also has GPS and it’s able to tell Fire Eagle where it is. If Fire Eagle could just let other systems know what timezone that location is, they could update with my new timezone.
So I set out last night to try making that work. The challenges to surmount:
Fire Eagle doesn’t output timezone info
my Blackberry doesn’t update Fireeagle
I don’t know how to write Mac (Cocoa) applications
I found the J2ME updater app by Simon King and got it to run on my Blackberry. Just downloaded the JAR to my Mac, went to Media on Blackberry and chose Receive by Bluetooth and sent it from the Mac. Then I could navigate to the file and install it. After setting up the OAuth (a little clunky) it’s running and updating Fire Eagle. (more details) And if you’re interested in making it better, it’s an open-source project, fireeagle-updater-midlet on Github. Sweet.
So now my location is updated automatically in Fire Eagle and soon applications can look up my timezone. So what software will read it and update my Mac’s timezone? I don’t know Cocoa or Objective-C to write a Mac native app. Fortunately, the timezone can be updated with a simple Mac system command. A different but equally simple command works on Linux. I do know Java and could write a cross-platform app that runs the appropriate command depending on the OS it’s running in.
I’ll wait until Fire Eagle is actually outputting the timezone info, but I wanted to document the above. Also, is anyone interested in collaborating on this application? I’d like to make it plugin oriented so different devices can be updated, e.g. Google Calendar.
I’m in Seattle now and for the next six weeks. I’m working at University of Washington with Prof. Tanimoto, a great guy. Here’s my new address for you to send gifts and attestations of the void created by my physical absence from your life.
Turadg Aleahmad 608 21st Ave E Seattle, WA 98112
I write this from Victrola café. They got some good coffee. The vibe is like a less hipster hyper version of Ritual Roasters in SF’s Mission District.
It hasn’t rained yet today, despite the forecast, so I hope it stays clear through the fireworks. Well, clear as in no water falling from the sky. It’s quite overcast. Apparently, that’s something Seattleans get used to, mostly by mainlining caffeine.
The CS department has its own espresso machine. Not one of those press-the-button rigs like in Wean, but a real professional barista style machine. And everyone knows how to operate it. I hope I don’t return to Pittsburgh a caffeine addict, but I fear that experimenting with shots and foaming will be too seductive to forgo.
Note, I don’t think Ahmadinejad is right about what the world needs.
UPDATE: I asked Ally how she found that web page and then I tried to find it myself. I did, along with this SFist page using one of my photos of Boogaloo’s. Fun!
This message is to the 20 or so people subscribed to the feed for this blog.
I’ve been using FeedBurner’s Link Splicer to add into the feed a daily grab of my bookmarks on Ma.gnolia. I’ve been keeping those a while, and using the feed to share them with people who want to see the things I like to share.
Since Google Reader added sharing, and now notes, I find that I’m not using Ma.gnolia hardly at all anymore. For real bookmarks that endure, I’m using Foxmarks (which replaces Google Browser Sync because it works in Firefox 3). For timely sharing, that I used to use Ma.gnolia+Feedburner for, I’m using Google Reader.
If you want to see what I’m reading that I think is worth sharing, check out my Google Reader shared page. Better yet, load up Google Reader and add me as a Friend so my shared items will integrate into your other newsreading. While you’re at it, you can add the feed you’re reading, my personal about-me blog feed.
Tuesday I walked home and found my car up on the curb. I couldn’t possibly have parked that bad and forgotten it? Did it slide on the ice? Some damage on the driver side bumper showed it had been hit and pushed 2 ft onto the curb. No note on the windshield. Crap. Did I mention I don’t have collision insurance?
I go to my mailbox, and there is a note. The driver left their name, car make and year, their insurance company name and 800 number, and their own policy number. There are good people in the world.
And today Jack’s Towing came to tow it to Progressive’s repair facility. I don’t know if I got to speak with the Jack, but what a jolly Pittsburghy guy. And while I was standing next to the tow truck, hearing Jack’s story about a power tripping officer at the impound, a car pulled up with the window down.
“Is that your car?” “yeah, it got hit” “I saw her hit it! She was gonna write a note and I told her to call 911. What if that note fell off?” “Wow thanks! yeah, someone put it in my mailbox for me” “yeah I told her to call someone. what if it had fallen off!”
The TV on the Radioconcert at Mr. Smallswas great. They began by sharing that the singer and lead guitar (the essence of the band) are from Pittsburgh themselves. Even though this was a sold-out show, it then became the most intimate I’d seen at Mr. Smalls.
And now I’m listening to “King Eternal” and at 2:20 in I hear them sing “Pittsburgh, let her shine”. I looked up the lyrics to see for sure, and it’s not what they say, but it’s what I’ll keep hearing.
A loan shark is a scumbag who charges the poor obscenely high rates of interest.
New definition:
A loan shark is a scumbag who charges the poor obscenely low rates of interest.
The post above doesn’t allow commenting, but I’m compelled to say this somewhere: No.
Real New definition:
A loan shark is a scumbag who charges the poor obscenely high rates of interest, or charges deceptively low rates at first and raises them unexpectedly.
I see Tabarrok’s point… it’s fair to say that Reich doesn’t trust the poor entirely with their money. But that’s good policy. The poor can’t afford to take the same risks as the rich because when they lose out, they’re not eating. It’s even worse since the last reduction of bankruptcy protections.
It’s in the interests of society that people are well-informed when making their financial decisions. That’s why you get all those little pamphlets with your bank and investment accounts. Why shouldn’t the poor also be informed in ways relevant to their decisions?
The idea was simple. I don’t have a lot of money. But I do have friends. And my friends call all the time.
What if I sold advertising on my phone? After all, I sell banners on my web site.
What if I could run ads for movies and music and stuff me and my friends like? My friends would think that was cool. And if I could get paid every time I get a phone call, THAT would be awesome.
So we built this service. Anyone can use it. We line up the advertisers for you. You earn rewards the very first time a friend calls you. And you get paid REAL CASH.
In the future, every interaction of humans and computers will be a monetary transaction. Yay.
