The Nexus of 2024

Author: jon

  • F—ing Mac

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    I usually love my Mac, but right now is a big exception.  When I got a new MacBook Pro earlier this year running Tiger (10.4), the migration over from my previous (two-ish year old, running 10.1 or 10.2 I think) machine went incredibly smoothly with the minor exception of no longer being able to print…

  • Poisoning squirrels in the repository

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    Slashdot’s linked to a bunch of good stories on computer security recently. Squirrelmail repository poisoned has the catchiest title, and plus it’s about squirrels, so it goes first. What happened was that an intruder got into the site where you download Squirrelmail, and introduced a very subtle change in the code that would allow somebody…

  • I love it when stuff like this happens!

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    Recently somebody who’s interviewing around Microsoft told me that they had brought up Ad Astra in an interview context as a way of demonstrating that they understood viral marketing: “Remember all those hot pink Mashup posters around campus? Well, here’s how we approached it; this was my role; this is what I learned.” And it…

  • Teen sues school that wouldn’t let him go to prom in a dress

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    When Kevin Logan went to his high school prom in 2006, he was hoping it would be a night to remember. What he’ll remember, though, will be standing outside in the parking lot while his classmates danced inside. As Logan walked up to the prom, clad in a pink prom dress, West Side High School…

  • Advice to people thinking about their next job

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    Over the last couple of days, I had very similar conversations with a couple of people who are looking for a new job. They found my perspective helpful, and so I realized it might be more generally useful. [Caveat: since both of them are ex-Microsoft people (who have good reasons for considering going back there)…

  • Did Blockbuster and Facebook violate the VPPA via Beacon?

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    James Grimmelmann has an excellent post over at the Laboratorium. His summary: Another member of a professorial mailing list I’m on asked whether Facebook may have violated the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988. Nicknamed the “Bork Bill” (a newspaper published his video rental records during his confirmation hearings), the VPPA protects your privacy in…

  • Antifreeze for the winter in Seattle

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    There was a great article in the Seattle PI on Friday about Seattle Anti-Freeze and how their participative, theme-based gender-balanced parties are “finding a cure for the common cold”. Gayle Laakmann, one of Anti-freeze’s founders, interned for me several years ago at Microsoft Research, and since this gave me an opportunity to get in on…

  • Notes on quotes

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    Somebody pointed out to me in email that my repeating the characterization of me as “airing dirty laundry” looks like an example of something that politicians (and persuasive communicators in general) are warned against: publicizing the attacks against you.  It’s an good point, especially since attempts to combat or defuse the attacks often reinforce them…

  • Bullies and moderation in online discussions

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    A kerfuffle that recently went on in one of the online communities I hang out in is a nice illustration of some of the complex interaction between moderator privilege in discussion forums, power vectors and bullying. Briefly, a poster engaged in a bunch of techniques such as using loaded and admittedly-pejorative terms in a theoretically-neutral…

  • New theme (much of the time): Goodfell3s

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    Update on April 12: back to Goodfell3s. Note on December 12: the theme randomly spontaneously resets to the (blue) default. If that’s what you’re currently seeing, this post may not make a lot of sense. Another theme from Amsterdamn, as pink as the less-than-successful Leone experiment but at first blush a lot more readable. We…

  • w00t, w00t: just “claimed” my blog on Technorati

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    and in the two minutes from when I signed up until I checked the blog’s summary page, its rank went from 4,446,976 to 3,053,157 — at this rate, I should be top 10 by dinner time! Authority = 1 for now, but no doubt once everybody starts crosslinking and adding to their Technorati faves, it’ll…

  • Can Led Zeppelin still rock?

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    CNN’s Peter-Sorel Cameron asks the sixty-four thousand dollar question and really goes out on a limb with his conclusion: “No one really knows what to expect, apart from three legends of heavy rock playing some of the best music in the genre.”   Headline numbers include the 11,000,000 people signed up for a chance for tickets,…

  • Insults, “mate retention behavior”, and gender violence

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    Continuing the theme for the day, I was looking at a couple of abstracts from Christian Jarret’s excellent BPS Research Digest: Why do some men insult their partners? concludes “men who habitually insult their wives or girlfriends do so, somewhat paradoxically, as part of a broader strategy to prevent them from leaving for someone else…

  • Carnival against sexual violence 36 — and What Men Can Do

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    Today’s the last of the 16 days of activism against gender violence and so I wanted to highlight December’s Carnival against sexual violence, hosted by abyss2hope. Categories include legal, media watch, personal stories, raising awareness, research, and my fave solutions, which has a link off to shakesville’s excellent What Men Can Do. A few especially…

  • Fascinating on so many levels

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    An anonymous commenter on Mini patronizingly critiqued me for “airing dirty laundry” about Microsoft on a public forum under the guise of a “helpful” warning me that “my new employer” might have second thoughts about me because I’d presumably “do it to them as well”. (See the thread for the full language and context —…

  • Judge suggests trans exclusion from ENDA may impact Title VII protection

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    Ann Rostow’s excellent Bay Times article gives details and context. After transwoman Diane Schroer was denied a job at Congressional Research Service when she told them she would be reporting at work as a female, Schroer sued in federal court under the aforementioned Title VII, alleging that her job was revoked due to impermissible sex…

  • I’ve got fans! Kind of.

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    In  a comment in the Power vectors thread, Vanita said: You were useless (I met with you several times at Microsoft) and it looks like you still are. I am glad to hear you are gone – it made no sense for Microsoft to pay you a hefty salary given the “work” you were doing.…

  • Power vectors and HTML in comments

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    I just made my first HTML comment here, at the end of the Lorelei experiment, pointing to its continuation with Leone (the theme not the director).  w00t w00t! It’s not at all obvious but by default WordPress blogs are set up to allow HTML in comments. There’s no preview feature or WYSIWIG editor though so…

  • New theme: Leone, by Andiz

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    “a lovely theme by Amsterdamn“. alas, it shares the “tiny font” weakness of Leone. it’s two-column layout is clean (and has a blogroll, unlike orchid) although Leone’s three-column layout has more useful information and navigation options on the screen. and it certainly responds to the points that Adam made in the Leone thread: black text…

  • “Eight business technology trends to watch”, from the McKinsey Quarterly

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    James M. Manyika, Roger P. Roberts, and Kara L. Sprague have a good short article in the most recent McKinsey Quarterly (free registration required*). The categories include managing relationships (for example, “extracting more value out of interactions” and “using consumers as innovators”, managing capital and assets, and leveraging information in new ways. Clearly written, and…