El Gringoqueño

All a man needs out of life is a place to sit ‘n’ spit in the fire.

Author: Jim (Page 18 of 51)

Father of 4, Engineer, Social Worker, longtime blogger, #linux user. Opining on the internet? What else is it for?

My Thoughts on Occupy Wall Street

November 17, 2011 /

I agree with them philosophically.  Yes, America’s values are out of balance.  We invest in making money, and it’s a wonder we’re not more screwed up.  You can’t invest in making money.  You can only invest in creation.  Creation drives growth.  Once the whole system becomes a circlejerk of ponzi schemes and mortgage-backed securities, you’re just playing roulette with someone else’s money.  There is so much hypocrisy in the system where we will bail out the richest corporations and banks while we tell American citizens if they get sick, it sucks to be them.

That said,  operationally OWS and I are on opposite ends of the spectrum.  Here’s the problem as I see it.  First, Nelson Mandela declared that the oppressors define the battlefield.  If the nature of the oppressor is violent, then the only tool you have is violence.  Some disagree with it, but I think it makes good strategic sense.  If you’re being shot at, it’s time to get some guns.

It would follow then, that if the nature of the oppression is commercial, then commerce is where you should wage your struggle.

Start a business with a charter like Ben and Jerry’s, where the CEO cannot earn more than 7 times the lowest salary.  Start an insurance company like USAA.  Start a financial services company that only invests in sustainable technology and businesses.  Start something that reflects your values.  Vote for candidates that reflect your values.  Run for local office.

You cannot tear down the existing system.  It is too big, too wealthy, and too entrenched.  Yes, I know you are young and idealistic, but your boundless enthusiasm isn’t going to cut it.

 

Asier Learns to Swim

November 2, 2011 /

Age 4 1/2 yesterday, Asier has learned to swim.  We couldn’t find his floaties and in the interest of not wasting more time looking, we decided that we would have a swimming lesson.  He made it half way across the pool on his first try.  As he gained confidence he keep going farther and farther, until he could practically go all the way across before he got tired.  With the other children we had to coax them into trying and help them overcome their fears.  Asier just decided that it was okay and kept going.

“Again, Daddy!”  And swim he would, lap after lap after lap.  He was beaming.  Actually it looked just like this, his first day of school.

Such a big boy.  The sooner we drown proof him, the better.  Having a pool that little ones can fall into is nerve racking and I live in fear of somebody falling in and drowning.  My fear coupled with Asier’s big boy resolve and we have the makings of an O’Malley Gorbea Family swim record – 4 1/2 years old.  Yeay!  Asier.

Facebook Cookie Tracking Nonsense

October 25, 2011 /

Two Congressmen have written a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asking the FTC to investigate certain websites’ use of “supercookies” to track the activities of website visitors after they have left the website and without their knowledge.

Which begs the question, who says you left the website? In today’s interconnected web/Facebook API you essentially never leave Facebook. If a website has Facebook’s API installed, you know, that innocuous little “like” and “share” buttons, you are on Facebook.  Of course Facebook tracks you, you never left their site.

The web, in its most essential form, is just an interconnected series of HTTP calls via GET, HEAD, POST, PUT, DELETE. Any webpage can have resources linked to any other site. We have crammed a bunch of functionality into our venerable HTTP specification, but it’s essentially just that simple.

When you visit a website, you are not visiting a destination, you are visiting a virtual representation of resources fetched from all over the world, some of which are Facebook. Since you are using Facebook, they know what pages are using their resources, because the site operators opted in to their API. If you wish to avoid this, you will need to delete your cookies from Facebook and deny them the ability to place them. If you are a site owner and you are worried about your visitors’ privacy, you should remove the Facebook API calls from your site.

Clela and the Giant Lemon

October 14, 2011 /

It all started back in August when we went out to Los Angeles to visit my Grandmother on her 90th birthday.  She is doing very well and I swear she hasn’t aged physically or mentally in 20 years.   She is better read, sharper, and more alive than I am, I think.  I hope I have that to look forward to if I make it to 90.

In her back yard, she has this old lemon tree, not just any lemon tree, let me tell you.   This one was was loaded, and according to Grandma, it has had this tremendous abundance year after year.  We must have picked over a hundred and still its branches strained under what was left.  It looked barely touched.  And the lemons? They were huge.  In fact, here’s a grapefruit sized monstrosity.

The lemons were all healthy and enormous, and even though Southern California is a desert, the fruit was saturated with liquid. It was all I could do to keep it from dripping all over the counters. I juiced pitchers and pitchers of lemonade for all the grandkids and great grandkids.  We had a hoot messing up grandma’s kitchen, then making popcorn. Oh yes, it’s not an O’Malley party without popcorn!  Popcorn and lemonade.  Yum.

So I juiced all these lemons, had so much fun, and decided I wanted a souvenir.  I dried out about 40 seeds, took them back to Puerto Rico, and promptly planted them.

Look, a little lemon tree sprouting up through my compost. Now that I have at least one, I’m going to plant more and give them away, spreading those delicious fruits as far and wide as I can. All those little seeds came from somewhere, and it is splendid to seem them flourish.

On Steve Jobs and People Like Him

October 8, 2011 /

I have to admit, I’m a little ambivalent about the death of Steve Jobs.  If I am honest though, it hurts a little.  It hurts a little when great people pass on, never to conqueror again what they had conquered, never to achieve again what they had achieved.  For us, the peons, never to witness that level of greatness again is a bit bitter.

In my case, it’s strange, because I don’t use Apple products.  I don’t like them.  I don’t like Steve Jobs.  I don’t like his company.  I don’t like his business practices or caged computing environment. I personally have stayed away from Apple and Microsoft products completely. I don’t have any grand hatred toward either, but I do value the freedom to tinker, and to control where and how I create what I create. Way back in 1999, I swore it was the last time that I would have some proprietary piece of software tell me where and when I could install it and what I could do with it. And that was that.

So why feel even a twinge of sadness at the passing of Steve Jobs?  He fabricated products I don’t use and restricted people’s freedom to create pushing them more toward mindless consumption.  Perhaps, it’s our little monkey brains, terrified and mesmerized by the strength of one of our own, a brutal conqueror who was able to accomplish something no one else had.  Steve Jobs was ruthless, driven, ambitious, and intelligent.  He did not suffer fools, nor anyone.  His company conquered a particular consumer computing space thoroughly and completely.

Alexander the Great?  Great because he killed a whole bunch of people?  Yoda: Wars not make one great.  Genghis Khan, Gen Patton.  We worship them, revere them simply for their ability to ruthlessly conqueror and lay waste with efficiency in a way no one else has done before.

Sure, let’s not get carried away.  Steve Jobs is no Genghis Khan, but his greatness is familiar in that sense.  He had a vision for a part of this world that he felt he owned, and he shaped it, and nothing got in his way, not people, not money, not technology.

So, props, Steve.  You did it your way.  You were great in what you did.  I know why people worship you, but just shake my head.  I don’t think, in the end, your vision was the right vision.  Sure you and Apple made a lot of money, but I think you missed the point of the future envisioned by your 1984 self.

Pancakes a la Irene

August 27, 2011 /

It’s the lining that’s important, we said, the silver lining, that is.  It is always a struggle to see it, dulled by the swirling mists and clouds and rain.  Oh, and was there rain… 20 inches in one day in some places.  Our electricity went out first, and with it Internet, phone, and then the water.  Power was out for two days and it took a good chunk of the stuff in our refrigerator.  Water came back after three, and Internet and phone after four.

So where is the silver lining, you ask?  Look closely, and you will find it in the pancakes.  That’s right, those pancakes were made with spoiled milk.  Those rich fluffy, cake-y, awesome confections were made with lumpy cheesy milk.  They always turn out super extra special when we use spoiled milk, and with the power outages we suffer weekly, it’s a common occurrence.

So, bring it.  Hit us with your best shot.  We’ll just keep making more pancakes.

So Here’s a Perfect Example of Biased Reporting

July 15, 2011 /

California orders gay history in school textbooks – US news – Life – msnbc.com.

What the story is really about is a state law that removes the exclusion of key figures in California history.  You can’t do that any more, says the state law.  You must include the contributions of gay folks.

The way the title reads is perfect fodder for right wing reactionaries to screech, “See, THEY do have an agenda, and they are going to cram it down our throats.  We’ll have to learn gay history!”

Sigh, it’s just history.  There’s no black history.  There’s no gay history.  It’s all OUR history.  We should learn as much of it as possible.

Oh, here’s another interesting link I saw the other day.  I did not know this:

http://www.thelavenderscare.com/

 

Why Weiner Took Photos of His Weiner

June 15, 2011 /

I’m not going to beat around the bush.  Laura and I suspect we know the reason he and a rash of other celebrities of a certain age are being caught with their pants down.  It’s male hormone replacement therapy.  Testosterone or something related.  It’s gotta be.   Access to it is becoming more commonplace every day and one of the side affects is teenage behavior.  Remember what it felt like?  Well, take this replacement therapy and your energy will pick up.  You’ll make better strides in your athletic performance and you’ll feel great!

Side effects may include stupidity.

There, I said it.  The reason these idiots (Woods, Weiner, Schwarzenegger, among others)  are imploding at such a rapid rate is that they are taking hormones.

 

Be Careful What You Wish For

May 17, 2011 /

A lot of the work I do is bascially phone/email corporate tech support.   I get the IT managers and their assistants calling me for advice and troubleshooting on network, security, email spam, filtering, and on and on.  I’m sort of the go to guy for corporate IT managers in my little circle in Puerto Rico.

Here’s the thing, I used to get annoyed by the fact that I couldn’t get ANYONE to use email.  Email is my trouble ticket system.  It’s allows me to assign a date to the incident, make a to do list, and have a record in case my clients forget that they called me.

Here’s the problem:

Everyone wanted to call.  Everyone wanted to leave voice mail messages that said, “Give me a call.”  There was no mention of the problem, a description anything.  If they did send an email it would say something like, “I have a problem with the server.”    I would sigh, pull out my crystal ball and divine up the problem with a series of repetitive questions…  all of which we’ve been through before.  If there’s a problem with an email, instead of emailing me the bounce, error or whatever, they’d call and say that someone (top secret identity?) was having problems with their mail.  Sending? Receiving?  Was anyone else having this problem?  Was it with only a particular recipient?  Was it a network problem?  Can I see a copy of the email bounce in question?  And on and on.   Wouldn’t it just be easier for them to click forward and send me the email?  They already know what I’m going to ask.

But they didn’t, and for many moons, I felt like an automated question engine running through my script, yes, no, no yes, okay BING here’s your problem.  But recently, perhaps in the past year or two, something has changed, and I suspect it has something to do with social media and SMS.

People have stopped using the phone to make voice calls.  I’ve noticed it in personal relationships.  Talking has become passé.  People are now practiced in asynchronous communications.   We can now dispense with the “Hi, how are you, how’s your family,” salutations and pleasantries that used to bind our social network of personal interaction.  Now it’s all asynchronous and me-centered.  I have information I want to send you, here it is.  Read it when you wish, but I don’t really want to talk to you.  We post on our facebook, twitter, whatever and just throw it out there.  It requires NO interaction.  People will take that and use it for what it’s worth.  We are detached from our communications.  Everything is a discrete packet self-contained and autonomous – automated.

It’s a shame to admit it, but it makes my job easier.  I can knock things out with minimal stupidity.  Simple bug report, simple fix.  It seems social media and SMS has trained my clients to send it and forget it.   I have become an automaton, a problem solving engine dependent on rich precise input.

But is this is healthy for society at large outside of specific business contexts?  What are your thoughts?

Did the Whole World Suddenly Stop Blogging?

April 19, 2011 /

Kinda seems that way, doesn’t it, that the whole world stopped blogging all at once.  I got off track and then busy, then one week became two, became a month, then two, then… sheesh.  Will I ever post here again?  Will I ever want to post again?  It’s weird, because a good fifty percent of the blogs I regularly read have stopped cold too.  It’s like the the world breathed some sort of collective “meh” about blogging.  I’m still trying to figure out why I don’t have anything to say, but while I ponder it, my fellow bloggers can suck it.

I posted.  I’m still here.

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