Company Blog?

Where is the "company blog" that is mentioned in the announcement?

I wish I could sign up for premium, but I'll only do that if I can pay by credit card. And it won't let me pay by credit card because I already have a paypal account. :\.

Novel Urinals

I don't know how many people have noticed, but there's been a revolution in American public bathrooms recently. There are now bathrooms with IR sensors on the toilets, which cause the toilet to flush when you stand up. There are faucets with IR sensors so the water runs when you stick your hands under it, (and stops when there's no one around).

When the IR sensors work, I really like this stuff because it means I don't have to touch the icky plumbing. I don't much like the IR based paper towel dispensers because the sensors never work right, and as rain forest killing as it might be, I do prefer paper towels. My favorite is the folded, interleaved towels that simply hang down from the dispenser such that you can grab a towel or two without ever touching anything other than the towel.

The building that houses my new job has the most modern bathrooms I've seen recently. IR toilet sensors, IR faucets, even IR soap dispensers, (that actually work!), and my favorite interleaved paper towels.

So I was surpised to find a new innovation there - flushless urinals. Basically, these are just bowls mounted on the wall with drains at the bottom. And they got me to thinking... why flush urinals at all? I mean, if flushless urinals work, then why have we been flushing them for decades? And if they don't work, then why are they installed here? Who decided that urinals needed to be flushed at all? And why? Was it just superstition? Or did they actually run into some problem in the past with flushless urinals, some problem I can't quite fathom, which has now, through the wonder of modern technology, been circumvented?

Think about it. If water is used to flush the dirt off your hands and down the sink drain, then why don't we have something to flush the water off our hands and down the sink drain? Are those electric hand dryers a form of flusing the water off our hands? Why is it that we think of hands which have been water flushed and then hot air flushed as "cleaner" than, say, hands which have been flushed with sand? Or with that chemical they use for "dry" cleaning?

In any case, these were the thoughts that went through my mind as I availed myself of these modern conveniences for the first week. And then of the sole remaining urinal as the first was marked "out of service" by a garbage bag covering it.

About the time the second urinal was covered with a garbage bag, it began to occur to me that perhaps there had been no technology improvement whatsoever and that maybe these things didn't work after all.

In any case, I'm fascinated. I can't guess what the failure mode might be for a flushless urinal. But the fact that they've both been out of service for a few weeks now seems mighty suspicious.

Stuff, stuff, stuff

Lot's of stuff.

I have tons of stuff I'd like to journal, but keep not finding the time to journal it.

I had a great day a few weeks back. A Friday. Left work early, motorcycled up to Harbin, (harbin.org), for a Skydancing tantra singles weekend. Great bike. Nice roads. Fabulous weather including just a hint of rain that smelled like fresh summer rain. Great tunes on my ipod. Etc. Great day.

Last week was "certification week", the culmination of my Skydancing tantra facilitators' training I've been working through for the last couple years. I didn't get certified, but I wasn't expecting to. I thought I had to teach 9 workshop days and that I wouldn't get them in by last week, so I didn't even try. Turns out I only needed 6 workshop days and I could have made that goal. *sigh*

And now things have changed. I need to sign up with the freshly minted insitute and start paying them per-head for the people who come to my Skydancing Tantra workshops, even before being certified. I had been thinking I'd get the cert, then decide whether I really wanted to be teaching a bunch of these each year. But now I sort of have to make that decision now, sorta. Dunno. I didn't sign the contract. Need to reread it and think some more. I definitely want to be teaching more. The money from teaching more would be really handy. But I'm not sure that this is really what I want to invest in teaching indefinitely.

Anyway, I jumped out of cert week early and ran off to a HAI level 3 workshop for the weekend. Both at Harbin. I didn't even move my tent.

Level 3 was better than the earlier levels, I thought. Partly because the material made more sense and partly because I seem to be learning how to take HAI workshops. But I bailed out of the last exercise and even left HAI and Harbin early. That got me home earlier, and in time to spend some time with Tia, which was good.

Last night, while Tim was visiting, I spent an entirely unhostly amount of time on the phone with one of the HAI facilitators offering my feedback and suggestions. I feel heard. So... *shrug*. Guess we'll see what they do with the info.

New job is still good, but I'm way behind on the learning curve. It would have made a big difference if I'd started the month or two sooner when they first started talking with me instead of waiting around on the time off issue. *sigh*

And now it's Dickens season. Whoopie. About all I know so far about this year is that it's going to be long. That I'm not going to be going at 5am and staying until late. And that there are some other people I want to be spending time with before the end of the year and I want to find ways to work that in. The terminal superficiality of Dickens is just too draining. I need to do _something_ personally meaningful during this time too.

I'm broke. Sorta. My credit card is maxed. I need a new computer. I want a new camera and new lenses. And I want to be booking the workshops I want to take in 2008, but between maxed out credit card and lack of gender balancing partners, I'm stymied on that front. Also waiting to decide my Skydancing strategy because if I'm going to keep going in that direction, then I may want to commit to assisting for 3 separate weeks in 2008. Wishing I could find ways to push my photography show while it's still hanging so that I can sell more prints - that would help. If I don't, then I probably won't be able to afford to do another show in 2008 and will have to wait till 2009.

On the good side, I had a lovely weekend with a new person just before cert week. And while she lives a few hours away, I'm hoping to spend more time with her soonish. And I had a fine date with another new playmate a couple weeks ago whom I'm also looking forward to spending more time with soon. So play-wise, things are looking up a bit.

One Laptop Per Child

The One Laptop Per Child project is fascinating. They're aiming for a $100 unit, no moving parts, innovative UI, low power, entirely open source, durable enough for children in third worlds. Technically, it's interesting and has a high overlap with my current professional projects. Socially, it's also very interesting. And economically/politically it's also fascinating.

They haven't hit the $100 mark, though. And in order to start producing the units, they're collecting donations. The interesting thing is that for $399, they'll sell you two units - one will go to a third world country as a donation and the other will be sent to you before xmas.

It's not clear whether these units will be useful for anything at all, even web browsing, even games for small children. But the project is fascinating and I'm positive that these things are going to be way hot and super novel around silicon valley for a while.

In any case, please give some thought to this project and consider a donation at this time. I've already paid for one pair. And I'd be happy to have at least one more in my possession. So if you're up for a partial donation and don't really care to keep a machine around, let me know and maybe we can go halves or something.

5.6

We've just had a 5.6 earthquake very near my place. (centered near milpitas). I'm well, my building is still standing, I'm still online, etc.

quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs...04628.html

(this doesn't really need a title)

So I'm sitting out side the cafe yesterday waiting for my lunch to appear, and I hear this nasty plastic crunching sound followed by a loud snap - coming from the direction of my motorcycle, which has just been backed into by a huge honking land yacht of an S.U.V.

The estimate is $1200. The bike is still ridable. And her insurance company seems fairly pleasant to work with so far.

Opening...

Yesterday's opening went well. Many cool people. Many friends. Wonderful assistance. Even a few sales.

About half the people present had never been to Citadel before, so that aspect worked nicely also. We had around 50 people come, which was lovely and totally manageable. Part of me wants to kick myself for not getting press releases out in order to pull in more people, but a bigger part of me thinks I needed to have a successful smaller event before I'd be capable of coping well with a larger one. So maybe that wasn't so bad.

I'm still hoping to make a few more sales during the course of the show. And I'm hoping to find other places to show it when it leaves Citadel.

Next time, press releases. Everything else, however, went really well.

Thank you to everyone - especially August and the folks who helped me make it happen. I know it's cliche, but I couldn't have done it without you.

Wow.

Two days down this time.

Anyone else wondering where we all might migrate to next?

It's looking pretty sad for tribe, I'm thinking. The sorts of down times we're seeing suggest less attentive sysadmin and aging hardware. Repetition of those times suggests that they're trying to keep existing stuff running rather than upgrading or replacing.

Weird Day

I've just signed the offer letter for a new job and put in my notice at my existing job.

Kinda weird. I'm an employee here and I'll be an employee at my next. More, they came looking for me, offered equity and more money. That's a bunch of personal firsts.

Curiously, I'll be working on very much the same thing, only from a very different position.

And while we broke off talks a couple weeks ago when they didn't want to let me take a bunch of time off for workshops, they've actually put it in my offer letter now. It's not unlimited time, as I almost have here, but it's 3 weeks vacation and 3 weeks unpaid time available, (plus assorted Fridays and half Fridays).

It's strange. Usually I'm either sad to see a job end, or I'm anxious to be out. And in this case I'm neither. Usually I'm relieved to find a new gig. And this time I'm not. I'm curious. And I'll be excited soon, I'm sure.

Anyway, weird day.

Art hangs tonight

Just a brief reminder for those who've asked...