Burnout and Ops

I burned out at a start-up some 3 years ago before I got a stable good job with a large company.  Back than I was hoping to give the developers some more power and get them to define the kind of servers that we would need so that I can automate the starting of these servers on AWS.  The guy who hired me was talking to his next job he saw the writing on the wall.  This talk is very enlighting, wish I had listened to it before the job

Little Bits

These look like they would be fun and educational, however they aren't cheap.  I am thinking of getting one for my 6 year old, maybe in a year or now, haven't decided.

you can buy one plus one today

Funny that for black Friday the only concession One Plus One gives is that you can actually buy the phone.

Homeless in Silicon Valley

I wasn't aware how close to me the homeless bus is since I don't generally take the late bus or was even aware of the 24x7 nature of the 22 bus on El Camino, the main rode in these area.  Further more there is a whole area of homeless encampments right in my area.  I definitely understand how this can happen in this area of wealth.  Not everyone makes it in the tech industry and this area like Hollywood attracts more and more talent from around the world so the competition is tough to get jobs.

It makes sense that if you get on the 22 bus with nowhere to go, you might as well stay in it and keep out of the cold. Would be neat if the VTA could apply the fare to a cheap motel, but I guess they aren't in this business, even if by happenstance the buses are moving people to nowhere.  It is a sad reality, I get that the AOL intern was lucky enough to sleep at his old job as no one turned off his badge and was able to eat sleep and slower while working on his start up.

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead

I got interested in blending organic produce when I watched Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead some years ago, at the time I was doing pretty badly and I started trying to eat better and ride a bike, but my physical stamina sucked.  I later also watched Food, Inc. Forks Over Knives, Super Size Me, and probably some other movies that talked about the pitfalls of the industrial food complex that feeds us lots of corn often in the form of high fructose corn syrup.  My health got worse and I ended up on prescription medication, which these days I am weening off from slowly, but I digress.  The point is that we often don't feed ourselves with the right nutrients to sustain a healthy life, or exercise enough. I decided to move out of polluted El Segundo to Silicon Valley, Got a house close to work, which is a very low stress environment and must say that I feel much better these days with far more energy. So part of what i have done is buy a bicycle to ride to work every day rain or shine, summer or winter.

I bought a Ninja to chop up organic veggies and fruits which FarmFresh sends me a fresh box every 2 weeks for $33 of fruit and veggies. Coupon: RALF3127 will get you $10 off the first one. Neat idea, seems more good quality and fresh that what we got before from the market. For one time I also tried to get a bag from work, but cycling home that wasn't too convenient.  Anyhow I am trying to grow my own, but the process is still stuck at making compost also not figured out how to eat my own stuff, the birds and squirrels usually get the best of my crop anyhow and water is expensive here in the desert.

I feel good about the changes i did in my life in the last 3 years ;)

High end Android phone: OnePlus

I have been looking at some reviews for the OnePlus phone and I think if I were to buy a cellphone this one would be it, little issue though, you need an invite and I don't have one, would love to try one out though.  The reviews I have seen out there are pretty good. It isn't perfect, however for the price a great value for a high end Android phone.  Now they have a pre-order system in place. Given they have great features and a low price, I think I could put up with a wait on ordering it.

Free Mobile trades

I am trying to finally get an account with Robin Hood to trade for free.  Get in line for your account, you can also trade for free.  I like the story behind this and want to try it out.  If I get an account I will let you guys know how well it works.  So lets go explore.

1998 Ford Escort ZX2

Here is the latest problem on the 1998 Ford Escort ZX2, the little rubber stopper that pushes the break light switch off is broken in 3 pieces. A quick and dirty fix is pretty easy and was done

Again the little rubber stopper on the break pedal broke off, the tape from the credit card lasted months, but than the rubber stupper broke in 3 pieces, it may be time for a more permanent solution, some googling shows other Ford ZX2 owners with this issue.

Above I found the part that I think replaces this issue. There are also some creative solutions involving a rubber cork that I rather like. On the right is his finished product.

no car niehgborhood

I live on a noisy street, kids on scooters, but mostly cars that incessantly drive by at all hours of the day and night. I would love it if after work when I drive home I could just stay parked at the grocery store and carry home what I need that day in order for the cars to be off my street, at least at night when I want to sleep, but if they daytime could be without cars, we could let our children play on the street.  However since I live on the main street to the school, I guess I am stuck with the traffic of all the parents taking the kids to school, strange thing is that no one in my city is even eligible to go to the school down the street from me, instead of us walking 2 blocks to school, we have to drive our daughter 2 miles to a school in the right district, I really want to be able to send our daughter to the school down the street.

However back to the idea of no cars, if we had to walk to our homes, we might entirely abandon the car in favor of maybe a bicycle and buses, which are easier to send to a central collection point anyhow and wouldn't we all breathe easier if we achieved this?

Don't get me wrong, I used to love to drive and sometimes the car is a real convenience, but I wish that as a society we could get out of it more and do other things to get from here to there. Telecommuting is a big one, one-line shopping can really help, but I think there is a economy of scale in that last mile if we all simply park at our neighborhood store and walked home.  In order to realize this we probably also have to be less individual about owning our car, and share cars more, otherwise the parking might not be enough.  The point though is we can probably get this done with the current infrastructure.

Conferences

Feb 21 SCALE12X LAX

March 10 CeBIT Hanover 

April 7-11 Hannover Messe Hanover

May8 LInuxTag Berlin

May 24 Bremen

Almost bricked Samsung Galaxy SII TMO

I had been running CyanogenMOD 10.2, Android 4.3.1, and was encouraged to go to 4.4 KitCat so I tried installing an unstable nightly for my phone. I have so much to learn about Android, but it now works great on a nightly build.

Sleepless in Berlin

I found a lovely AirBnB very close to LinuxTag.org and will actually get time off from work, although I don't know how I will fill the financial hit :(  I sat in on some Droid talks

Lots of configuration management talks, I had no idea there were 3 more that i hadn't heard about.

I know I need one, but which to choose isn't easy, so since they don't really seem to care at work we use bash and not really doing the right thing yet. 

App

Years ago people use install dragon on the computer to be able to talk to it today can do this to my cell phone to my blog and pretty much with everything perfect this is actually pretty amazing what will tomorrow bring question I should leave some corrected we accept it  can shooting

OK so maybe speaking tho my phone kissing poshest but typing makes mistakes tho