bao-to-matic

ha! cynical project manager top 20....

2009-03-09T10:41:00.001-07:00

1. Projects with realistic budgets and timetables don't get
approved.
2. The more desperate the situation the more optimistic the
progress report.
3. A user is somebody who rejects the system because it's what he
asked for.
4. The difference between project success and failure is a good PR
company.
5. Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it.
6. Every failing, overly ambitious project, has at its heart a
series of successful small ones trying to escape.
7. A freeze on change melts whenever heat is applied.
8. You understood what I said, not what I meant.
9. If you don't know where you're going, just talk about specifics.
10. If at first you don't succeed, rename the project.
11. Everyone wants a strong project manager - until they get him.
12. Only idiots own up to what they really know (thank you to
President Nixon).
13. The worst project managers sleep at night.
14. A failing project has benefits which are always spoken of in
the future tense.
15. Projects don't fail in the end; they fail at conception.
16. Visions are usually treatable.
17. Overly ambitious projects can never fail if they have a
beginning, middle and no end.
18. In government we never punish error, only its disclosure.
19. The most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.
20. A realist is one who's presciently disappointed in the future.

from: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-manager/?p=881&tag=nl.e053

more migrating off the iPhone

2009-02-14T13:40:00.000-08:00

i've been using my c905 for the past few days without incident. it hopped onto my wifi and has been giving me internet feeds and email and stuff... but i've mostly been around the house. went to noisebridge yesterday for the 1234567890 fest and realized that my edge and 3G were sorta not working. like i could still get my IMAP mail but internet browsing was dying (error was "something is wrong with the page you tried to access. Choose another link.")

I had already gone to the sony ericsson site to get the auto-config message sent down to my phone, and since email was working i was kinda like, "WTF?"

Turns out that when you migrate off of the iPhone you need to call AT&T and have them switch your data plan, re-provision your service and re-activate your account in order for the internet service to work. whee!

please note that doing this then broke my voicemail so i had to call them back to get that fixed. YMMV.

setting up a sony ericsson c905 with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

2009-02-12T10:36:00.000-08:00

just a place to keep my notes as i go through this process.

update: i tried installing the iSync plugin mentioned by the commenter and so far so good... just remember that apple yanked all bluetooth functionality from 10.5's address book so there's no need to buy that from the feisar people unless you're on 10.4.

my next hallenge is going to be figuring out how to turn on 3G/GPRS... so far i've just been using it with wifi and haven't needed to worry about it, but the "auto setup SMS" thinggy sent to my phone by sonyericsson's site din't do squat to enable it.

had an iPhone and loved it, but missed having a decent camera and MMS... then it broke and Apple won't replace it and AT&T won't let me buy a new one for $199 because i'm not "upgrade eligible" -- so it's $499 for a 3G if i want one... then i got a c905 for my birthday -- problem solved :)

obiously uncle steve wants to lock you in to his universe and never let you leave, so the oh-so-wonderful "beam my entire extended contacts from one phone to the other" on my old SE phones doesn't exist on the iPhone... so how to get my contacts onto the new phone...

connect and pair the phone with bluetooth... (god i missed having wireless access to my phone's filesystem! hooray! no more "iTunes AND aperture AND iPhoto MUST launch because an iPhone has been attached to USB and NO there's NO preference to turn that off") hmm... Address Book.app is not showing me bluetooth options at all. This isn't good.
launch iSync and add new device... "Sony Ericsson C905 -- this device is not supported." Crap.
email a test Vcard to my phone from Address Book.app. it arrives via SMS as expected, but the phone doesn't recognize it and can't add the contact. Grrm.
On the phone, create one fake contact
Back up the contacts database to the memory card (Contacts > Options > Advanced > Back up to m. card)
Use the bluetooth file browser to figure out which file it just made (Memory Card/System/PIM/PB_Backup.vcf). this looks promising...
(if you want to do this yourself, i think you just start here:)
Open Address Book.app and export my contacts as a group vcf, name it PB_Backup.vcf)
Use the file browser to delete the backup on the phone (if one is there)
Use the file browser to replace the backup with the one i exported from Address Book.app (Memory Card/System/PIM/PB_Backup.vcf)
Restore this backup on the phone (Contacts > Options > Advanced > Restore from m. card)
Done. should take all of about 2 minutes :)

it's all about the caption, baby :)

2009-01-19T12:41:00.001-08:00

It's chocolate.
Originally uploaded by larawkstah

from janet

2009-01-09T13:32:00.001-08:00

A Time Comes In Your Life

A time comes in your life when you finally get it. When in the midst
of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks, and
somewhere the voice inside your head cries out ~ ENOUGH!

Enough fighting and crying or struggling to hold on. And, like a child
quieting down after a blind tantrum, your sobs begin to subside, you
shudder once or twice, you blink back your tears, and through a mantle
of wet lashes you begin to look at the world through new eyes. This is
your awakening.

You realize that it's time to stop hoping and waiting for something to
change or for happiness, safety and security to come galloping over
the next horizon.

You come to terms with the fact that he is not Prince Charming and you
are not Cinderella. (ummmmm!) And you realize in the real world there
aren't always fairy tale endings (or beginnings for that matter), and
that any guarantee of "happily ever after" must begin with you; and in
the process, a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you're not perfect, that not everyone will
always love, appreciate, or approve of who or what you are, and that's
okay. (They're entitled to their own views and opinions.) And you
learn the importance of loving and championing yourself; and in the
process a sense of newfound confidence is born of self-approval.

You stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did
to you (or didn't do for you) and you learn that the only thing you
can really count on is the unexpected.

You learn that people don't always say what they mean or mean what
they say, and that not everyone will always be there for you; and that
it's not always about you. So, you learn to stand on your own, and to
take care of yourself and in the process, a sense of safety and
security is born of self-reliance.

You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people
as they are, and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties;
and in the process, a sense of peace and contentment is born of
forgiveness.

You realize that much of the way you view yourself and the world
around you is as a result of all the messages and opinions that have
been ingrained into your psyche.

You begin to sift through all that you've been fed about how you
should behave, how you should look, and how much you should weigh;
what you should wear and where you should shop, and what you should
drive; how and where you should live, and what you should do for a
living; who you should sleep with, who you should marry, and what you
should expect of a marriage; the importance of having and raising
children, or what you owe your parents.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. And
you begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really
stand for.

You learn the difference between wanting and needing and you begin to
discard the doctrines and values you've outgrown, or should never have
bought into to begin with; and in the process you learn to go with
your instincts.

You learn that it is truly in giving that we receive. And that there
is power and glory in creating and contributing; and you stop
maneuvering through life merely as a "consumer" looking for your next
fix.

You learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the
outdated ideals of a bygone era, but the mortar that holds together
the foundation upon which you must build a life.

You learn that you don't know everything, it's not your job to save
the world and that you can't teach a pig to sing.

You learn to distinguish between guilt, and responsibility, and the
importance of setting boundaries, and learning to say NO.

You learn that the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry,
and that martyrs get burned at the stake. Then you learn about love.
Romantic love and the familial love. How to love, how much to give in
love, when to stop giving, and when to walk away. You learn not to
project your needs or your feelings onto a relationship.

You learn that you will not be more beautiful, more intelligent, more
lovable or important because of the man or woman on your arm or the
child that bears your name.

You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you
would have them be.

You stop trying to control people, situations, and outcomes.

You learn that just as people grow and change, so it is with love and
you learn that you don't have the right to demand love on your terms
just to make you happy. And, you learn that alone does not mean
lonely. And you look in the mirror and come to terms with the fact
that you will never be a size 5 or a perfect 10, and you stop trying
to compete with the image inside your head and agonizing over how you
"stack up."

You also stop working so hard at putting your feelings aside,
smoothing things over and ignoring your needs. You learn that feelings
of entitlement are perfectly OK. And that it is your right to want
things and to ask for the things that you want and that sometimes it
is necessary to make demands.

You come to the realization that you deserve to be treated with love,
kindness, sensitivity, and respect; and you won't settle for less.
And, you allow only the hands of a lover who cherishes you to glorify
you with his/her touch and in the process you internalize the meaning
of self-respect.
And you learn that your body really is your temple, and you begin to
care for it and treat it with respect. You begin eating a balanced
diet, drinking more water and taking more time to exercise. You learn
that fatigue diminishes the spirit and can create doubt and fear. So
you take more time to rest. And, just as food fuels the body, laughter
fuels our soul. So you take more time to laugh and to play.

You learn that for the most part, in life you get what you believe
you deserve and that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for, and that
wishing for something to happen is different from working toward
making it happen. More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve
success you need direction, discipline, and perseverance.

You also learn that no one can do it all alone and that it's OK to
risk asking for help. You learn that the only thing you must truly
fear is the great robber baron of all time. FEAR itself. You learn to
step right into and through your fears because you know that whatever
happens you can handle it, and to give in to fear is to give away the
right to live life on your terms. And you learn to fight for your life
and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom.

You learn that life isn't always fair, you don't always get what you
think you deserve; and that sometimes-bad things happen to
unsuspecting, good people. On these occasions, you learn not to
personalize things. You learn that God isn't punishing you or failing
to answer your prayers. It's just life happening.

And you learn to deal with evil in its most primal state ~ the ego.
You learn negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be
understood and redirected, or they will suffocate the life out of you,
and poison the universe that surrounds you. You learn to admit when
you are wrong and to building bridges instead of walls.

You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple
things we take for granted, things that millions of people upon the
earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water,
a soft warm bed, a long hot shower. Slowly, you begin to take
responsibility for yourself by yourself; and you make yourself a
promise to never betray yourself and to never settle for less than
your heart's desire.

And you might hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen
to the wind. And you make it a point to keep smiling, keep trusting,
and to stay open to every wonderful possibility. Finally, with courage
in your heart and with Spirit by your side you take a stand; you take
a deep breath, and you begin to design the life that you want to live
as best as you can.

~Author Unknown~

benza

2009-01-09T10:15:00.001-08:00

check out the vase that koko's BF designed -- it's like a giant slinky
around a central cylinder so you can change the shape of the
exterior... so cool! (they gave me one for christmas :)

so who wants to bring what?

2008-11-15T14:50:00.000-08:00

we're gonna do the turkeys...
leave a comment here on this blog (so everyone else can see what's been spoken for and what's not) and let us know what you want to bring :)

NOTE: you can just use 'name/url' to comment so you don't have to log in or anything. blogger's "anonymous" option seems to be broken.

: b

Thanksgiving

2008-11-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

guest list so far:

3 Brian and Kelly and Nina
5 Monte and Lee
7 Chris and Trudy
11 Clint, Kelly, Kyle, Cole
13 Judy and Larry
15 Michelle and Beau
17 Terisa and Kevin
19 Steve and Erika
21 Eric and Brian

start thinking army-sized proportions:

For 19 adults and 2 youngin's that want leftovers, that's 40 pounds of Turkey, 30 cups of stuffing, 10 cups of potatoes, 10 cups of veggies, plus pies, bread, soup, cranberries, and whatever else we want to devour.

For the Turkey, I will make the "leftover" portion in advance; about 10-12 pounds. For the big day, roast a 20-22 # bird, and thanks to Deep's humungous deep fryer, deep fry another 8 pounds so that everyone has some hot meat to eat. The advance bird will give us a head start on gravy too, and fine-tune our new oven.

where to put everything? We'll empty the fridge, and have two coolers. Maybe we need a 3rd.

still to get: probably need a few more platters and serving bowls.

wednesday

2008-10-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

satay beef
cucumber salad
tomatoes and mozzarella
06 parducci chardonnay... meh

wolf tweet :P

2008-10-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

tonight --

grilled sausages, elote, caprese salad, sauerkraut
04 'barrel of monkeys' shiraz -- pandering, grape koolaid-ey, but strangely drinkable. i wanna put 7up in it and drink it on a hot day :)
watermelon salad

last night--

grilled sirloin, green beans, asparagus
edna valley cabernet (05) -- big fat MEH.
cheesecake

getting burned

2008-10-17T17:13:00.000-07:00

Ouch. We've all gotten burned by the "it's all your fault" client at some point.

It took me a long time to develop that right mix of professionalism + self-confidence + track-record + history of getting burned + faith in future earnings potential to have that iron will to force EVERYONE thru all of the hoops and to just lose the business of people who won't jump thru them.

Contracts always read like a corporate history of 'every way I've been burned so far'.

"No, I'm sorry, we don't send out hardware until it's paid in full... Yes, I understand that you're on a tight deadline... Then perhaps you should focus your efforts on making the check show up faster if you'd like the units sooner... No, I won't do half down and half later... I've already sent you a long list of client and credit references, Sir, I assure that we are not a fly-by-night operation and your units *will* arrive when I say they will... No, Net 30 does not mean Net Whenever... (and on and on)"

At the beginning we were just so eager to get sales that I'd do anything. And that was AFTER I learned all those lessons once when I was doing freelance computer stuff! I guess i just had to re-learn it while i built up confidence that if Rushy McHurryup decided to cancel his order another customer is somewhere behind him waiting to play by the rules.

I'm sure you know all of that already.

A buddy and I were talking the other day about how we now suss people out in 5 minutes on the phone and can tell whether or not they're "real". One of the biggest warning signs: Anyone who says they're in a "hurry". These people need to be reminded of the old adage: "price, schedule, quality -- pick two." Unfortunately by the time they reach you, the only thing that will save them is a time machine and a money printer. Since they don't have that they settle for the next best thing: a scapegoat.

Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes:

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a man below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him half an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 42 degrees north latitude and between 58 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.
"I am," replied the man, "but how did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost."
The man below responded, "You must be a manager."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "how did you know?"
"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are exactly in the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."

elote and steaks

2008-10-15T14:33:00.001-07:00

elote
Originally uploaded by bkusler

september 27th

steaks and grilled corn...

satay happiness

2008-10-15T14:00:00.001-07:00

satay happiness
Originally uploaded by bkusler

september 25th

homemade satay chicken and tofu
grilled peppers and onions
daikon salad
frogs leap chardonnay

kelly got his cross-hatches

2008-10-15T13:56:00.001-07:00

kelly got his cross-hatches
Originally uploaded by bkusler

26 september

grilled chicken and peppers
grape tomato salad
kim chee
cucumber feta salad
daikon salad
sauerkraut
(can you tell i'm craving fermented vegetables?)
05 bridesmaid napa red

foooood

2008-10-15T13:50:00.001-07:00

foooood
Originally uploaded by bkusler

october 5 - trudy cooked!

nina's famous meatloaf (with prosciutto and smoked gouda)
green beans
mashed potatoes
elote
05 stags leap merlot
a gorgeous italian red that marco's sister and friend gave us
tres leches cake
arbeg 10

some previous ones...

2008-10-15T13:30:00.001-07:00

now that i've firmly cemented my place in the "part of the problem" column... here's some more "shit i cooked" on the new stove

13 october

grilled pork chops stuffed with roasted garlic
sauteed vegetables with garlic and wine
dutch crunch rolls
05 duckhorn napa valley cabernet
fresh raspberries

12 october

grilled new york steak
arugula salad with aged balsamic dressing
caprese salad with fresh mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes
05 duckhorn napa valley cabernet

cook list...

2008-10-15T13:19:00.000-07:00

so jj told me that i should make a list of all the stuff we've "wolfed" up on the new stove...

me:
i think i will go and do that... but man it's gonna make me look like the yuppie bitch i am!

jj:
Twitter up a stovelist?
Haha. Cool

me:
i technically *do* have a twitter account
but i never use it
likewise with my blog

so hmmm lets see....

14 october
salmon skin 手巻き (temaki)
baked salmon with olive oil and dill
sauteed vegetables with garlic, olive oil and white wine
06 Talley chardonnay

cheesecake with hand-made chocolate sauce
06 picchetti port

ok wow, see, i told you...

interesting carsharing stat...

2008-03-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

on a canadian carsharing newsletter today, i spotted this interesting statistic...

according to the CAA (the Canadian equivalent of the AAA):

owning and driving an average car an average number of miles per year = $8,000 a year, $670 a month, $154 weekly, $22 a day...
owning but NOT driving the same car = $6,800, $567 a month, or $19 a day, just to let it sit in the driveway...

i can't even imagine how much driving i'd have to do on my City Carshare account (or any of my carshare Roaming accounts, for that matter) to spend $19 a day!

(i think they pulled their stats from here:

http://www.ama.ab.ca/images/images_pdf/2007-04-27DrivingCostsBrochure2007.pdf)

fantastico!!!

2008-02-26T16:24:00.000-08:00

check it out -- spanish campaign songs for hil/bama!

fantastico!

i wanna play these at a taqueria and see who notices :)

http://hillaryclinton.com/files/audio/Hillary08themmix.mp3

http://www.amigosdeobama.com/

i didn't bother to look for any republican ones because you know they'd suck...

(thanks to trudy for cluing me into these! they're from http://theworld.org.)

ATT

2008-02-13T09:48:00.000-08:00

there are a million little tips on people's blogs about how to send a text message via email. because of ~~att, cingular, nyagular, coagulent,~~ att's history there are like a million WRONG emails out there for you.

as of today, february 2008:

4151112222@mobile.mycingular.com works

UPDATE, june 2008:
4151112222@mobile.mycingular.com works intermittently
4151112222@txt.att.net works

@sms.att.com FAILS

@mmode.com FAILS

@att.net FAILS

@mms.att.net FAILS

we are one

2008-01-24T11:47:00.001-08:00

we are one
Originally uploaded by bkusler

i was on the N on my way home from work. i decided, "hey! i know, i'll cook tonight!" so i stop at the new golden meat and bought center cut boneless pork chops and this balsamico so i could make lydia's fantastic pork chop recipe.

i get home, open the front door and the house smells of pork and vinegar. kelly decided to surprise me and cook... wait for it..... lydia's pork chops. he went to the same, brand new market (so we have no buying habits there). he bought the very same cut of pork chops. and despite them carrying like 20 kinds of balsamico (none of them our usual brand), he bought the exact same bottle as i did.

we are no longer a couple. we appear to have become some sort of borg-like hive mind. eek!

she's still getting calls....

2008-01-17T14:38:00.001-08:00

fruity in drag at work
Originally uploaded by bkusler

like over a year ago we stuck a fax machine on our old home phone number (now that we own a business it's surprising how often you need to use this time machine to the 80s...). due to some silly credit card drama, i actually had to start answering that line again (you can always push the start button if you pick up and it's someone trying to fax you)...

so over the past week i've gotten the usual solicitations from politicians and carpet cleaners and opinion surveys... but i'm also *still* getting at least one call a day for fruitpie. and they're always collections agencies :) i'll have to call and tell him that his fans are still dying to talk to him. bwahaha

favorite feature of the day...

2007-11-16T10:15:00.001-08:00

if you use safari 3 and haven't looked in this menu, do.

the Merge All Windows command fucking rocks. as does the Move Tab to New Window command. whoever wrote this -- i kiss you!

hypercorrections

2007-11-16T09:59:00.000-08:00

go look it up. it's one of my biggest pet peeves. now i'm noticing people doing grammatical hypercorrections:

congratulations, you've discovered the en and em dashes! now go learn when to use them!
i visited the diebenkorn show at the san jose art museum this weekend and their designer appeared to have run Find and Replace 'hyphen' with 'em dash'. it was jarring and totally JV. stop. now. please. thanks :)

xkcd

2007-11-14T16:53:00.000-08:00

i love xkcd. sometimes it feels like he's writing a comic about the childlike fantasies i'm supposed to have outgrown but am too embarrassed to admit even to myself that i haven't. other times it's just so sweet and sooo torn right from the pages of my apparently-not-so-unique life.

he's running a series right now that might as well be called "the cruel tutelage of donald knuth."

whether it's the 8 year old girl hacking the unix mainframe in jurassic park, angelina jolie in hackers, or the dime-a-dozen cyberpunk vixens cruising thru the datasphere wearing a virtural reality glove and a black leather miniskirt -- straight nerd boys have such entertaining fantasies about nerd girls. considering that most engineering departments are still only 10% women, i think we gay boy nerds got the numbers on our sides for once :)

fyi, my husband is so totally the girl from the comic strip :P i'm the luckiest man alive :)

new city carshare math...

2007-11-10T14:47:00.000-08:00

i'm a longtime city carshare member, and i'm also a subcontractor who uses some of their technology. when they announced their new pricing plans, i sat down to pencil out if the new sharePlus would be a good deal for me and i thought i'd post it for others to look at. all of this information is based on public and member-facing information.

the old plan:

$10/mo
$4 peak, $2 offpeak
44¢ a mile
long trips = call enterprise or pay a LOT (my one-night trip to Davis cost $230!)

new shareLocal plan (the default):

$10/mo
$5 peak, $1 offpeak
== $88/day ($136 for premium cars)
40¢ a mile
4 extended freedom trips a year

new sharePlus plan:

$20/mo
== $120 more per year than shareLocal
$5 peak, $0 offpeak
== $80/day
40¢ a mile
10 extended freedom trips a year
== 6 more than shareLocal
no surcharge for premium cars

extended freedom trip:

$40/day ($50/day for shareLocal members in a premium car)
10¢ a mile (200 max)
== $20
so a 200 mile, 24 hour trip will cost you $60
that same trip on shareLocal without extended freedom
== $168 ($88 hourly + $80 mileage), you save $108
== $216 in a premium car, you save $156
that same trip on sharePlus without extended freedom:
== $160 ($80 hourly + $80 mileage), you save $100
== $160 in a premium car (plus members pay no surcharge for premium), you save $100

whew! that's a lot of numbers... but returning to my mantra "you only have one decision to make -- is sharePlus for me?"

joining sharePlus means $120 more per year.
for that i get 6 extra EFs, meaning that they cost me about $12 each.
since the base plan includes 4 EFs, it's really all about the 5th EF and beyond, isn't it? can you recoup your $120 in those 6 extra trips?
take a car for a 24-hour, 200 mile EF trip and you save $100 in a single trip, so yeah, six long trips a year and you're "in the black" (because you get 4 on the basic shareLocal plan, you'd have to take two trips beyond those four, or six trips to breakeven).
shorter trips can be cheaper with EFs, too -- i had dinner with my brother in San Jose (7 hours, 130 miles) and the EF saved me around $23. any trip over 100 miles is probably a good EF contender.

looking over my usage and my car rentals from last year, i'm pretty sure i'll have no trouble making the sharePlus pay for itself.

other thoughts:

incentive to drive:
carsharing in general has a tenuous relationship with the environment -- on one hand it can incent people to drive less and to become car-free, but on the other it can tempt the environmentally conscious to drive instead of taking public transport (or biking/walking).

because this new type of trip makes driving cheaper, there's no question it will lead to an increase in driving. while my inner environmentalist tells me that's bad, it's also a huge issue of the "usability of the service". taking an occasional weekend to napa or carmel is one of the reasons having your own car is nice. i know plenty of folks who've done that with CCS and then had a heart attack when the bill comes. i even know people who've left CCS for Zipcar just to get themselves onto a predictable billing plan that allows them an easy "day rate" for those kinds of trips. extended freedom will dramatically expand the usefulness of CCS for me -- i dislike the hassle of renting a car when i need to get away, and i really dislike my monthly transportation costs quadrupling just because i went away for the weekend
availability:
historically CCS has had a difficult time keeping enough cars in their fleet to keep me as a member happy. unless they're planning a dramatic fleet expansion, this will make the availability problems worse.
asterisks:
lurking in the fine print you'll see that CCS has reserved the right to mark certain cars unavailable for EF trips. i'd prefer they expand their fleet rather than start making EFs harder and harder to use... how that will play out is yet to be seen.

another major asterisk is the dramatic fees for altering, canceling or not showing up for an EF trip, make sure you read the fine print!

CCS publicly committed to minimizing the number of premium cars in their fleet, so i completely disregarded the discounted premium cars in my calculations. i currently get a mini about 20% of the time that i want one.

ditto for the late night driving. i'm not a candy raver anymore so the free midnight to 8am wasn't worth calculating. and while it's nice to be able to keep the car until morning (especially if you had to schlep your fat butt 4 pods away to find a car with availability), you don't save a thing if your car has a parking ticket on it when you get up in the morning to return it. (yes, that happend to me just a few days ago -- i have the worst parking karma!)

lastly, i thought it was quite interesting that ONLY sharePlus members are allowed to purchase more EF trips. guess if you need 5 trips a year, you gotta buy 10...

ghetto MMS

2007-11-07T16:37:00.001-08:00

ghetto MMS
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

jj and i both have iPhones now. we were both complaining last night about how much we miss being able to send photos to each other. we're both photographers and over the past few years, i think we've probably sent more MMSes to each other than any other form of communication...

i've been hoping for a software upgrade that would enable MMS, but because steve jobs doesn't need it, no one else does either, apparently. "just email it" everyone says. no. sorry. i don't want my phone set to check email every 15 minutes and even if i did, a 15 minute lag between notifications is no substitute for the fun, rapid-fire MMS conversations we sometimes get into :)

so right now, we gmail the pictures and then send a text message with "beeeeep!" in it. ghetto, i know. so i went looking for other solutions and all of the google results were douchey blogs telling people to send email to {phonenumber}@mms.att.net or whatever. but hello, that only works if the receiver *doesn't* have an iPhone! (iPhones get this craptacular message and have to hand enter this cryptic junk into a web browser on a computer since this site won't even load on an iPhone).

anyway, i did a test today for a different workaround. i dusted off my almost-never-used yahoo account, configured the iPhone's mail client to talk to it, and then turned on the Push feature. not quite MMS, but vastly preferable to typing "BEEEP!"

my only Castro Halloween pic

2007-11-01T11:15:00.001-07:00

my only Castro Halloween pic
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

bevan dufty and gavin newsom destroyed one of our great traditions. im truly at a loss for words. so much fun and creativity struck down by 1000 police in riot gear harassing anyone who looked like they were having fun.

last years shooter became San fran's 9/11 -- a rallying cry used to shred civil liberties and due process in the name of "public safety". it worked for bush...

saturday castro halloween pre funk

2007-10-28T15:25:00.001-07:00

saturday castro halloween pre funk
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

we took the shitty basket of lemons that bevan dufty's gestapo handed us and made lemonade. police were out in full force to make sure that no one dared step into the street, so instead the sidewalks were a complete clusterfuck.

it was next to impossible to get good picutres or to do any of the interactive costumes like we've seen in years past (anyone remember that poseidon adventure costume, or the phone booth from The Birds?)

while i tried to keep my spirits up and grab the shots i could, halloween has been taken hostage by the police. truly we've thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

haiku

2007-10-03T15:15:00.000-07:00

so chad was telling me about this:
http://www.cleanscores.com

and i told him that the city already publishes this info. he said he couldn't find it. i searched my email cuz i KNEW i sent this out like 2 years ago.

while searching on 'tulan' i found this nugget:

On Jan 4, 2005, at 12:37 PM, brian kusler wrote:

crushing migraine emergency imitrex refill
brother called shipping camera beautiful clouds over vancouver again
fruity tulan not so tasty with splitting headache
maid sweeps juniper berries into coffee grinder gin flavored doppio
forgot again allergic to uncooked peppers toilet

from the archives

2007-09-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

i started to write about this and i was like, "wait, i already did!" (but on my private blog a while ago)

Monday, August 19, 2002

speaking of proving me wrong, mark moved back to atlanta. he was down at the transbay terminal about to book his bus (!) ticket when he saw a greyhound poster offering free bus tickets to runaways who want to return home. so mark made a few phone calls and managed to convince greyhound that he'd "run away" to SF and wanted to return home. that girl knows how to work it! there were a lot of reasons that he left, but one of the biggies is that he was really disillusioned with san francisco. and who wouldn't be? you hear about it your whole life and then you get here and nothing lives up to the expectations. i explained to mark that atlanta has a huge gay ghetto because the south is a prejudiced place -- that people only "circle the wagons" when they're being attacked. and in SF, we can live just about anywhere and be ourselves, so why should we all live in the same neighborhood? he actually seemed to understand what i was saying, but for a 20 year old who wants mile after mile of boys and gay shops to cruise, san francisco's post-discrimination demographic transformations left him bored with only a 5 block stretch of castro and market to entertain him.

it's actually been interesting to watch the transformation of the castro from my first visit in 93 to now. someone could probably write a book about this whole thing, but what really strikes me is how our acceptance in mainstream america has completely gutted the castro of a lot of its culture. in 1993, you couldn't go to a big-chain bookstore in suburban america and find book about gay people anywhere but the psychology and self help section. but now that there's amazon.com and now that even the barnes and noble by my parents house in orchards, washington has a full-on gay literature section, places like 'a different light' no longer need to stock "lesbian mommies' guide to baby's first kwanzaa" because the queer masses can just buy it at home rather than making a pilgrimage to san francisco for their annual taste of high gay culture.

so now a different light sells best-seller novels. and porn. just like most of the stores in the castro. skip the squishy subjective crap and just look at the stores that comprise our ever-humbler, 5-block stretch of our (ahem) "center of the gay universe": over a dozen places to buy or rent porn, over a dozen places to get meatloaf and mashed potatoes, almost a dozen places to buy a pipe to smoke crystal from, a dozen bars, half a dozen places to conduct real estate transactions, half a dozen places to get overpriced lowfat pasta and cocktails, (speaking of cocktails) half a dozen pharmacies, half a dozen fitness supplement stores, two dozen ATMs, two bookstores, zero four-star restaurants, zero museums. and i'm not complaining or lamenting or tsk-tsking or anything. i just think you can learn a lot about a neighborhood by looking at what kinds of businesses survive and prosper, versus asking any resident about what the "state of the neighborhood" is at any given moment.

i have this map of SOHO in new york that shows every single business in the neighborhood. i'd love to have a map like that of the castro, on my computer, with color coding for business type, and with a complete historical database in it. i'd love to compare today to 1990. or 1978. or 1955. some grad student needs to create that as part of his or her thesis. write it all down and rest for a while...
ok, gotta go, it's almost noon. bk

sync for SMS!

2007-09-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

after much grumbling earlier, someone's released an SMS sync program for the iPhone! woo!
http://www.markspace.com/missingsync_iphone.php/

don't have time to install it right now, but i'll post more when i do!

b-b-b-b-bacon!

2007-09-20T13:26:00.000-07:00

tammiqua is back from telluride with tales of film festival "celebrities gone wild" and decadent ski parties that were nowhere near the slopes :P

but her most interesting tale was one of bacon. apparently in telluride there's a place called Fat Alley where you can get a Bacon Shot -- warmed Makers Mark with a hot, crisp, piece of bacon in the glass as both swizzlestick and salty chaser. (umm, tequila, are you taking notes?!)

furthermore, there's a staff tradition of having a bacon themed potluck slash cooking party. bacon candy. bacon-infused vodka shots with melon garnish. bacon TAMALES. yes, gringo, i said tamales de fucking tocino! after eating bacon quesadillas in PV earlier this year, i'm suprised this idea didn't occur to me. but whatever, bad artists copy, great artists steal, and i'm so effen stealing this idea. the gauntlet is down. the first annual San Francisco Bacon Invitational (with Riparian Entertainment) is ON!

kyo no tema wa, koro desu!
.... baconnnnnn! .....

bust out your cast iron, your splatter guards, and your deep fryer u bacon whores!

Brianna Cracker

2007-09-19T09:46:00.001-07:00

Trannyshack 9/18-"Rumours"!
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von Heklina

the best thing last night was Brianna Cracker as this fat bitch with her tranny trainer trying to lose weight to Fleetwood Mac's "Go your own way" (or was it "Don't Stop"...) she had cheetos and oreos hidden in every orofice and most of them got thrown at the audience when the trainer found them :P

that's the trannyshack audience mantra though, "less chatter, more splatter!"

eric flaked, paul had to work, and sean 100% stood me up. but whatever, fuck that fat bitch she's dead to me now... it was good fun without her lame ass.... and while trannyshack doesn't have the tamale lady, they do have the bacon-wrapped hot dog guy :P

good seeing u last night. ur pic is up in my flickr.

loveya-->
: b

yay!

2007-09-18T23:52:00.000-07:00

this one was always my favorite and now there's a video!

which goes perfectly with the trannyshack version

and come on, isn't this what every gay man envisioned the first time you heard "lemme borrow that top"? (btw this is the show we were going to when this was taken)

awesome

2007-09-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

of course my favorite is the CBS "special" logo that came on right before charlie brown :)

addictive

2007-09-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

cant stop listening to this...

or this....

twice in one week...

2007-09-17T14:04:00.001-07:00

new boats!
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

so our friend mark from seattle (who visits regularly due to his death cab and peaches tour schedules) remarked to us once, "whenever i go out with you guys, the people in the restaurants already know your name and what you're going to order..." i don't know whether that makes us pimp or just predictable.

anyway, the chef at our favorite sushi place gave us some free sake this week and told us we were now part of their "decade" club since we've been regulars there for 10 years. who can argue with free booze and discounted sushi, right? it's a WHOLE lot more useful than all those frequent flier miles that you never get to redeem.

in the same week the folks at our regular mexican place hooked us up with free top shelf margaritas and even the waiters who weren't waiting on us stopped by the table to say hi... now if only we could convince them to let us eat at the staff (family) table and eat what grandma cooked that night!

i guess being predictable has its advantages :)

my new sig file...

2007-09-13T23:38:00.000-07:00

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
~ George Orwell

yeah. and how does that quote go about those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it... i can't help but think the terrible state of our educational system is making us more violent, manipulatable, and jingoistic.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear, kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor, with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.
~ General Douglas MacArthur

lots more here
http://vagabox.com/BTB%2001.html

revenge...

2007-09-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

for years stupid pop stars have been remaking great classics and by remaking i mean PISSING ALL OVER THEM (dixie chicks version of "landslide", i'm looking right at you!)
i have to say i've enjoyed my own recently-heightened awareness to people returning the favor. when shirley bassey covered p!nk's "get the party started" i about crapped myself.

for giggles, check out how many covers of christina aguillera's "what a girl wants" there are sometime :) and don't forget to search for "una mujer" since christina earned the rolling Rs in her last name and also released the song in español... the "smooth jazz" version is really, uh... something special. can someone get iron and wine to do a version. pleeeeease!

fruitape dot jpeg

2007-09-10T22:53:00.001-07:00

DSC_1795
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

good lord this is totally the bk version of fruitape.jpg, isn't it?

wedding photography tips...

2007-09-10T20:22:00.001-07:00

just finished my first real wedding shoot...

it's hard to be the photographer and a member of the bride's immediate family. everyone wants to talk to you!
on the other hand, it's good because you know all the backstories and who's important to the bride and who isn't
3 shooters is WAY better than one
photographic umbrellas and columbia river gorge winds do not mix
batteries don't die, they overheat. using the lithium batteries with the 5th battery attachment on an sb800, i was getting less than one second recycle times for about 20 flashes, then poof! the batteries would just stop charging the flash altogether until they cooled...
if you're bracketing and using RAW, you'll shoot all 480 pics on an 8GB card in about an hour. the d200 battery lasts about 480 pix, so it's nicely paired with the 8GB card
don't let anyone else use your camera. i have AF completely disconnected from the shutter button, so my poor sister shot a bunch of really blurry pictures. carry a nice point and shoot and hand it to whoever wants to take their own pix
8GB of data does not come off a card quickly no matter what kind of reader you have. (more than 10 minutes on a direct, eXpress card slot reader).
you can quickly become confused about 'which card has what and which has been downloaded and omg did i just format a card i wasn't supposed to?!' ergo a 16GB card is infinitely preferable to handful of 1 or 2GB cards
d200 batteries take several hours to charge, having two per body was essential
have a "safe corner" where children, dogs, wind, theives, etc cannot accost your gear. it needs a power outlet or seven
we thought we'd use the laptop for proofing but that just didn't materialize. using the zoom on the back of the camera worked fine luckily
polarizer is absolutlely essential for outdoor wedding
at dusk the 85mm f/1.4 was the only lens taking decent pictures. fast glass rules!
while this is obvious it bears repeating -- you can save an underexposed pix waaaaay better than an overexposed one
use RAW with auto whitebalance for everything except maybe the staged group portraits. things move fast and you WILL forget to adjust the WB manually. this means hand-correcting LOTS of pictures which prolly would have been fine with auto
ditto with auto ISO. things move fast and it's way better to have a grainy good pic than a blurry one
at least once an hour shoot a pic of the sky or a wall and check for schmutz on the CCD. even if you're not swapping lenses.
you brought a blower and CCD cleaner with you, right?
a step ladder can let you get shots you'd otherwise miss, but you have to remember to use the darned thing
don't forget the bride's list of "requested shots" on your desk at home ;)

UPDATE
i have a few more to add, now that i'm further through "the process"

the primary product of a wedding shoot is physical photographs and books. unless the bride is an experienced photoshop user, you'll still end up on the hook to make sure those images look great on paper no matter what you agreed to beforehand.
i shoot RAW on a d200 and then go straight to Aperture. on our initial print run (using the built in Apple/Kodak printing service) well over half of the images were just too dark. i ended up going back and boosting the Exposure setting on nearly every image i shot in order to make them look right on paper.

rice

2007-09-02T00:53:00.001-07:00

== 18 july 2004, paris ==

sushi really is all about the rice. they always say that on tv and
yes yes i've always believed them but i never really understood how
true it was until i'd eaten sushi made with overcooked, broken-grain
chinese rice. three weeks without asian food and we were both in
withdrawl. so that's pretty much all we've been eating since getting
to paris. so there we are, trying to order in french from a chinese
guy running a japanese restaurant who doesn't speak anything well
except cantonese. god bless him for at least putting the fish names
on the menu in both french and japanese, though. i don't even know
the words in english for half of the crap i usually order at my local
sushi bar -- what is "tataki" anyway? in my book, it's just japanese
for "deliciousness". so yeah, i say to him, "california roll, s'il
vous plait" just to add one more level of international abstraction
to the mix. he has no clue what i'm saying. i'm gonna just point and
then i think, "no! i'll put some of my japanese studies to work!" ha.
"vous-etes japonais?" "mais non, chinois." shit. foiled again. i
point. "ahh! numero vingt-sept!" he replies. i guess he doesn't know
his fish names, either.

everyone's a food critic these days but yeah... that glob of white
paste they were passing off as rice made me sad. especially since the
modest plate of sushi was nearly $70. i wanted to call the japanese
consulate and complain. "hi, yes, these fuckers from hong kong down
on rue berthollet are trying to give your cuisine a bad name. please
send down hattori hanzo and have him cut someone, please." ok fine
whatever, i knew it was hit or miss. we'd gotten great vietnamese the
night before and we are, after all, in the "city you're most likely
to spend a pile of cash for shithole food and lousy service" (a
coveted title that new york usually comes in a close second for).

earlier that day i'd eaten a pain au chocolat at a "japanese french
boulangerie" where all the pastries were 20% smaller, 50% less sweet,
15% more expensive, but the service 100% as rude as the rest of
paris. ooh, but the store had a really cool design, the signs were
all in french and katakana, and everything had amazing packaging! i
love it. i hope they open one in san francisco. and that it's staffed
by koreans. later, after my not-too-sweet pastry, i was eating at a
"microwave it yourself, you tourist asshole" chinese lame-sum
restaurant where the vietnamese hot "rooster" sauce was imported from
california. i guess i'm just having one of those "it's a small world"
moments. i'm sure a crabby, self-centered new yorker (there are about
8 zillion of them here right now, all tawwking at the tawp of their
lungs and wearing fanny packs) would write this off to me being from
a nowhere, non-cosmopolitan place like the west coast. but he'd have
to do it in english cuz that's the only language his "cosmopolitan"
ass speaks.

larry craig's a toilet tart! larry craig's a toilet tart!

2007-08-31T17:49:00.001-07:00

hilarious!
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/m4m/411046714.html

Re: xslt

2007-08-31T13:08:00.001-07:00

i had a good oreilley book, but since i bought it with CCS' dime, it's still at their offices. so here's my 5 minute "what is xslt":

conceptually it's ridiculously simple. it's sorta like a glorified microsoft mail merge template.

"Dear {{first_name}} {{last_name}},

BlahBlahBlah..."

where 'first_name' and 'last_name' are named xml nodes in the source file.

the part that makes xslt useful is that you can stick these XML nodes into things other than just plain text form letters to your adoring fans. you can stick those nodes into other types of code. for example, if you were taking an xml data dump from one source and loading it into another database that used "given_name" instead of "first_name" and "surname" instead of "last_name", you could envision an xslt like this:

<xslt>

<given_name>{{first_name}}</given_name>

</xslt>

when you "execute" the xslt, you tell it "here's the source xml, here's the xslt transfom template, and here's where i want the resulting file to go". that file might look something like this:

<xml>

<given_name>brian</given_name>

<surname>kusler</surname>

</xml>

<xml>

<given_name>nina</given_name>

<surname>ramos</surname>

<xml>

(and so on, one for each entry in the source file)

and of course you can do all kinds of tricky things too-- you can actually use the template to produce output in PDF or any format you want, as long as you're nerdy enough to write the transform correctly :)

there are GUI-based tools for doing xslt development, but i've never used any of them, i just do it all from the command line. i use xalan from apache for that ( http://xml.apache.org/ ). one look at that page and you'll understand why the CCS billing engine is called Xena. :)

i use the java version of xalan. an example call from the command line:

java org.apache.xalan.xslt.Process -in BUScat.xml -out BUScred.iif -xsl quickbooks_cred_group.xsl -TEXT

pretty straightforward... arguments are in pairs (e.g., -in followed by the input filename) the final -TEXT argument tells it that you want the output file in plain .txt format. (TIP: if you're using a mac, typing open filename.txt at the command line will open the file in the finder using that file's default editor).

as i'm sure you know, xml is rarely a big, flat structure. it's often composed of nested elements.

<xml>

<given_name>brian</given_name>

<surname>kusler</surname>

</person>

<given_name>nina</given_name>

<surname>ramos</surname>

</person>

</xml>

the art of telling the xslt what you really want it to select is an art in and of itself (called xpath). it can be as simple as "person/given_name" but there's all kinds of fun jedi type ways to select nodes.

some helpful links:

http://www.w3schools.com/xsl/

http://www.zvon.org/xxl/XSLTutorial/Books/Book1/index.html

http://java.sun.com/webservices/jaxp/dist/1.1/docs/tutorial/xslt/index.html

On Aug 31, 2007, at 11:29 AM, Nina wrote:

school me!

resources I should look at? tutorials I should go through?
keep in mind, I don't even write xml from scratch - I mine it from others and modify it to meet my needs.

good deep fry! my belly is still full...

-Neens

this checkbox does NOTHING...

2007-08-25T14:24:00.001-07:00

this checkbox does NOTHING...
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

it only sets the time automatically when you open the control panel again. what good is that? i just spent 40 minutes chasing down a bug that was caused by my server's clock being off by 10 minutes... so i'm grumpy.

i've done the crazy tech note on their site that supposedly fixes the problem but it's off by 7 minutes again.

you'd think that it might be important for 10 server to be able to sync to network time....

GRRRRR!!!!

2007-08-10T18:09:00.001-07:00

GRRRRR!!!!
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

ok, so everyone has their "list" of things to fix on the iphone.

yes i know the world doesn't need another one but you're getting one anyway.

i'm skipping the obvious ones and focussing on a group of people underrepresented in the US but who are HUGE in the next two iPhone markets: the "subway users" like myself -- heavy on the texting and MMS (ha!), light on the calls and bluetool headsets...

small SMS memory limit!
can't save text message conversations like u can ichats
can't forward a text message (essential if you can't copy and paste!)
can't send an SMS to more than one person
no SMSing while you're on a call (when you're stuck on a conference call it's SO nice to be able to SMS people like you can on a blackjack). update: you can actually do this if you receive an incoming sms during a call, tho i couldn't figure out any way to initiate a new SMS during a call. update2: cmp pointed out that pushing the "home" button during a call doesn't actually hang up on the person, so yeah, you can initiate an SMS as well - yay!
can't share a YouTube link via SMS (you HAVE to do it by email)
images sent directly from camera app are "nowhere" -- they're not in your mail outbox and if they get "stuck" you can't delete them
emailed camera images are auto-downsampled to 640x480
!! emailing a photo to an MMS-capable device detaches the picture from it !!
you can't queue messages for sending from the camera app, the first one has to send before you can send another
if you have a txt message DURING a call, you can't click END CALL at the end of the call, the ignore/view dialog is blocks you
'new text message' sound is not customizable, nor is the volume for it. i don't effing need to have britney spears or some testosterone-poisoned hipster mating call as my ringtone, i just need to hear thru my jacket pocket that i have a new message dammit.
safari doesn't use any of the free system memory to cache pages. i would like to load up 5 or 6 news stories before i leave the house and read them on the train to work, but when i reopen safari on the train, all the pages have gone blank and attempt to re-download. not gonna happen in the muni tunnel. it holds 2. that's it. 2.
safari doesn't cache the previous page even when you have only one open. i click back, it reloads from the server rather than caching it
in an sms conversation, you can't jump to edit the contact -- why doesn't clicking their name just open their contact? likewise when you're sending an email to a person who doesn't have an email entry... like steve's number is in my phone book, i *know* his address but i just haven't entered it into his contact yet, but i can't TYPE it in... instead you have to exit all the way back to the phone app. grm.
email configurations that will obviously fail are still copied with no warning (e.g., mail server is "192.168.168.3")
sorry, why does the weather icon always show 73?! the calendar icon always shows today's date. are they going to change this to 23 when it ships in europe?

sexy husband day...

2007-08-10T12:26:00.001-07:00

IMG_0063
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

we went to the ramp for lunch today. kel looks so damn good on his new bike i just had to post it...

great saying...

2007-08-06T14:08:00.000-07:00

ただほど高いものはない
tada hodo takai mono wa nai

roughly translated: free is the most expensive price
so, so true....

needs no explanation, really...

2007-08-05T10:17:00.001-07:00

an interesting bit about "proper" lolcat grammar:

http://www.dashes.com/anil/2007/04/cats-can-has-gr.html

i {heart} badu

2007-08-04T01:12:00.000-07:00

from this
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?playlistId=358425&s=143441&i=34041455

no really. it's erykah badu rapping. so good.... another flashback to 1997

i think it's time to take the jam
deep into the hype
hard core, cold hyp-in' the mike
i just so happen to be
Tough with a capital T
can't no weak-ass trick mc's
keep up front with me
hard on the mike
silly smooth with rhyme
you can read about badu
in yo hip hop times
you know i'm good to go
since i've upped the par
yeah, i throw on a rope
they wanna play tug of war
jealousy appears between both yo ears
cause i been doin' this shit for years, hah
never goin' out back i'm a female mack
so saps get back
while my dollaz stack
potential vibe, not conceited
but still hard to handle
got it up top
don't watch the blank channel
got soul cuz i'm funky
take a whiff of the jam
if y'on with the song
just say: "thank ya, ma'am"

the original iPhone

2007-08-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Kusler <bkusler@viafone.com>
Date: November 6, 2001 4:12:07 PM PST
To: Pete Walsh <pete@viafone.com>
Subject: for communique

nate's always complaining how no one makes (in the us anyway) a pocketPC phone. every time a new device comes out, he's like, "that's cool and all but i'm just waiting for the all in one, super-dooper, pocketpc-phone model that does..." after hearing this tirade one too many times, simon decided to give nate what he was after. introducing the new viafone OneDevice pocketPCphone (designed by simon waddington). someone tell russ that we're a hardware company now.

;-)
bk

READ THE CAPTION!

2007-08-03T14:15:00.001-07:00

READ THE CAPTION!
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

sfgate just scored like 943 points in my book, btw

"
Here they are, the Duggar children and their father Jim Bob Duggar (top center), as their mother Michelle holds the 16th addition to the family. While the birth was successful, doctors were unable to remove the large feral monster squirrel growing from the back of Michelle's head. Nor were they able to convince any of the daughters that bad Amish-style haircuts actually make God cry.
"

2001: This is what it is coming to!

2007-08-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

Begin forwarded message:

From: Cecilia, Parisi
Date: March 17, 2001 12:00:04 AM PST
To: Adrian, Bailey;, Bill, Lan;, Brian, Kusler;, Todd, Greenbaum;, Tom, Connard
Subject: FW: This is what it is coming to!

Check this out . . .

Fwd: HUMOR: the adventures of action item

2007-08-02T21:33:00.001-07:00

Begin forwarded message:

From: Frank Farm <ffarm@Adobe.COM>
Date: January 28, 2000 12:34:04 PM PST
To:
Subject: HUMOR: the adventures of action item

__________
Frank Farm
Web Technologist
http://ffarm.sea.adobe.com/

just an experiment...

2007-07-01T16:43:00.001-07:00

just an experiment...
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

pretty much everything with an "iphone" tag in my photostream is getting 100+ views a day. now that i'm posting more, uh, "normal" pics (which apparently means hunky guys eating!) i'm curious to see how those fare against an iphone pic in terms of views....

f0llowup (one month later):
i guess iphones are more popular than cute guys eating (look at the view counts)...

suXXors

2007-06-30T13:26:00.003-07:00

suXXors
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

before anyone jumps my shit -- i think the phone is tits. and i don't dole that word out lightly. it's srsly like 3x cooler than i thought and i'm thoroughly impressed.

that being said -- since bluetooth on the iPhone ONLY does headsets (see the previous page), how do you shoot a contact number from one phone to another???

my k790 can send contacts via SMS, MMS, email, Bluetooth, and IR. i tried SMS and this is what happens. lame. sorry. no "incoming vcard, add Sean to contacts?". oh, and since there's no copy and paste, you might as well hand type all of his info in.

and yeah, if i'm missing something please edjumacate me... i realize this could be user error ;)

should be called bluetool

2007-06-30T13:26:00.001-07:00

should be called bluetool
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

before anyone jumps my shit -- i think the phone is tits. and i don't dole that word out lightly. it's srsly like 3x cooler than i thought and i'm thoroughly impressed.

that said, the bluetooth appears to ONLY connect to headsets. nothing else. it discovers nothing in my office, and i've got like 5 discoverable bluetooth devices. this pretty much killed the plan for a 2 minute migration from the k750i, which has this awesome "send my whole fone book" feature that works over bluetooth.

luckily AddressBook.app was smart enough to know what to do with it (there's a bluetoof button in addressbook in case ya din't know dat) and then we used sync to put the contacts onto the phone.

and yeah, if i'm missing something please edjumacate me... i realize this could be user error ;)

---
update: i RTFMmed (pdf) and this doesn't give me hope:

Bluetooth
iPhone can connect wirelessly to Bluetooth headsets and car kits for hands-free talking. See “Using iPhone with a Bluetooth Headset or Car Kit” on page 37 for more information.

i used to WTFM for Adobe and this is the infamous "speak only in the positive" (i.e., if you could do more than talk on a bluetool headset, it would be enumerated here).

i often use my k790i as a bluetooth/edge modem to give my iBook internet access where there's no wifi available. you simply can't do this with the iphone, which kinda sux. there are PLENTY of important places (hellllooo SFO international) where there's no free wifi. hopefully this will be fixed in software at some point...

worlds 2nd shortest motorcycle ride

2007-06-18T00:17:00.001-07:00

worlds 2nd shortest motorcycle ride
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

or "why i can't hate harley riders"

we'd had an awesome ride up to dorrington and a great night with new friends. we got gas 5 miles from the cabin on our way back home and this gal on a harley was like, "dude your tire is in baaaad shape, i wouldn't ride on that". and she was right. the belts had worn clean through in a big stripe down the middle. because there was still a good patch, i hadn't seen the problem when we were leaving the cabin.

long story short -- the only good option was for kel to dash down to jamestown on his bike and grab a uhaul and for us to schlep both bikes back here that way. we got to hang at the cabin for a few more hours drinking gin and tonics rather than being in the middle of nowhere waiting for an emergency tow truck from modesto. or worse, waiting for a lifeflight helicopter to come mop me up from losing control when the tire blew.

so yeah, i'm home now and raising the glass to 4 harley riders. whooda thought :)

UBM

2007-06-18T00:03:00.001-07:00

DSC00259
Ursprünglich hochgeladen von bkusler

several years ago, kel and i were having considerable difficulty unloading our 200+ pound TV from the back of our City Carshare truck. out of nowhere two, large black men appeared (one of them with a chihuahua) on the street and were like, "where do you want the TV?" and about 30 seconds later, they'd effortlessly lifted the TV from the back of the truck and into our living room. before we could offer them a beer or a blowjob, they vanished. to this day it's almost like a collective hallucination.

well, UBM struck again. (only this time he was white). kel ran into our basement to find a big piece of lumber to act as a ramp to get our bikes out of the trailer. alas, all he found was a long 2x4. i was like, "i am NOT pushing my bike down a 2x4!" and literally 30 seconds later a voice from behind us says, "hey were you guys at thunderhill racing?... dude --- you're not going to try that with a 2x4 are you? i have a ramp at my house a block away, hold on..."

5 minutes later our bikes had a grand catwalk to descend to the street unscathed by our inexperiened, hamfisted asses.

UBM is my fucking superhero.

more tesla gushing....

2007-05-31T17:01:00.000-07:00

gah! so for real i saw a black tesla driving down church street last weekend but i couldn't muster the camera in time to snap a picture. garrrhh. but i did see this today and i effen loved it:

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog2/index.php?p=51&&&

The Air Resources Board continues to show a bias toward hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and against the less expensive and more efficient battery electric vehicles. This bias is clearly seen in the ARB Independent Expert Panel Report. Tesla Motors believes this bias is not justified by science or the evidence of actual vehicles and infrastructure.

However, we are actually delighted by the way this bias finds implementation in the ZEV mandate. For the results of this mandate is that all of our potential EV competitors – all the big car companies – remain mired in non-productive, deeply-expensive fuel cell programs, keeping them out of the EV marketplace, and indeed out of the serious ZEV marketplace entirely.

Every year spent on fuel cell programs by GM, Ford, Honda, and the rest is another year we at Tesla Motors can build our technological and market lead in the obvious winning technology: battery electric vehicles. We therefore sarcastically and enthusiastically encourage you to maintain the hydrogen bias and keep our competitors in the quagmire.

Meanwhile, we are on schedule to place 15,000 battery electric Tesla vehicles on the road by the end of 2010.

Sarcasm aside, wouldn’t it be nice for our environment if we had a few competitors?

riis admits doping

2007-05-25T10:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/12315.0.html

i hope they come take his fucking jersey. and i hope that the other winners, all of whom likely doped, have enough honor left to come out and say, "if you're going to take bjarne's, you're going to have to take mine too..."

it's time for pro cycling to finally acknowledge that EVERYONE is doping and has been since 1903. the "clean" tour is a fucking illusion. we need to move from a nancy regan philosophy to a dancesafe one. the biggest problem, in my opinion, isn't that doping "sullies" the sport, it's that it can kill the cyclist if it's done wrong. and that there's a lot of pressure on the cyclist from all sides to excel at your health's expense.

they're neck and neck!!

2007-05-10T13:15:00.001-07:00

erm, or should i say cheek-to-cheek? :P

what what...
Originally uploaded by bkusler.

ok so the other day i was mrrming about how nearly all of my most-viewed photos on flickr involve someone showing some skin.... and well, being who i am, most of it is boy skin :)

so amy decides i should post her "ass of steel" pic and see how her girl booty fares against my recently-posted pic of kelly in his speedo at indian springs.

they're neck and neck right now in the mid 60s! but keep in mind that amy's pic has only been up for like 12 hours versus kelly's 5 days! (they both have plenty of appropriate-yet-titillating tags). and, most importantly, they all have twice as many views as my purdy night shots of the city skyline :)

(3 months later):
i think it's safe to say that kelly is the clear winner -- 483 vs. 238, but i still have to wonder how amy would have fared if she'd been in a speedo like kel :)

warm summer night

2007-05-08T10:00:00.001-07:00

warm summer night
Originally uploaded by bkusler.

i finally got around to using my new tripod last night. my family bought me this killer manfrotto for my birthday back in feb but it's just been so cold and foggy at night that i haven't felt motivated. this week's heatwave tho -- hopped in a city carshare mini cooper opened up the roof and did some night shooting.

i've shot pix up here a dozen times, but the thing i was most excited about was finally being able to shoot below ISO 1600 and have none of the christmas tree noise that's on so many of my night photos. (yes i know about noise ninja, but it's not the same as just not creating it in the first place!)

my brother taught me a cool trick with differential layers in photoshop for removing noise with a CCD profile... i might have to try that sometime. the sutro tower picture really underscored for me how fast the stars in the night sky are moving, and if the stars were the main subject matter, i might need to do a 1600 + noise differential... but i think i'll wait to do that until i'm someplace with less light-pollution.

seeing the stars move also made me really want to shoot a long time-lapse series and turn it into a HD movie :)

Re: my wii number

2007-05-04T11:45:00.001-07:00

- oksoyeah -- amy totally guessed right -- she knew exactly which
church it was :)
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=lake%20tekapo%20church&w=all

- send me your wii num when u get a chance.

- went to tommy's. now we're going to the taco truck. they don't have
much mexican in NZ.

- tonight we're going to Joy and we're going to order the $120 "Sushi
Cruise Ship" for amy. we'll see if she can finish it all by herself.
or maybe we'll just ask the chef to build us the "sushi valdez" and
the whole table can attack it like a bunch of drunken ship captains.

followup:

- prolly going to enrique's party tomorrow for cinqo de mayo, then
over to calistoga for mud baths. "iron quads" Clark is getting a well-
earned massage as well :)

- i'm borrowing eric's sb800. going to try and learn some shit before
michelle's wedding. tho i'm hoping you were serious at judy's when
you mentioned me "being your assistant" cuz i don't know shit about
flashes :)

- amy dropped her lens in nz. it's cracked and it aint pretty :( the
stories from 4000km of biking are pretty amazing -- only 4 flats the
whole time! i think we're going clothes shopping today tho, cuz she's
mentioned several times that she wants to ritualistically burn
everything she brought on the trip cuz she's so sick of wearing the
same 4 things for that long :)

- trying to find tickets to london/germany for this summer (trudy's
graduation). fuck. $1500 coach is the cheapest, even if i do flexible
dates. virgin "premium economy" is $2700. ick. gonna try and get
united to hook me up with some sort of miles upgrade to bus class if
i can make it happen.

ok so...

2007-05-03T15:07:00.001-07:00

ok so...
Originally uploaded by bkusler.

ok, i have confirmation from 3 sources -- the old gal who escaped from the second story unit actually SET the fire herself. she's now in jail. evidently she has a history of mental illness.

it's funny because i intentionally didn't take any pictures of her. i felt like i'd be exploiting her in her hour of pain and loss. this has taught me again to NEVER assume anything in san francisco. almost nothing is as it first seems.

Re: Alleane finally updated our photo site!!!!!!

2007-04-30T16:32:00.000-07:00

i love these kinds of emails. i wish everyone could do them.
sometimes i think people lose touch because they don't have time to
write a bunch of flowery prose. i'm perfectly fine getting the bullet
points rather than nothing! how does that go? "the smallest good deed
done is greater than than grandest of all intentions"

my bullets:

working my ass off still

went to LA http://www.flickr.com/photos/briankusler/sets/72157600085163226/

went to PDX.
saw everyone http://www.flickr.com/photos/briankusler/sets/72157600118538864/
went to biograndpa's 80th bday http://www.flickr.com/photos/briankusler/sets/72157600120899017/

bought a wii- http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=wii&w=41808955%40N00
http://www.flickr.com/photos/briankusler/sets/72157600121608061/

went to sushi in burlingame and ate CalTrain roll! http://

www.flickr.com/photos/briankusler/478774099/

house across the street burned down http://www.flickr.com/photos/briankusler/sets/72157600154128484/

my friends from germany were here http://www.flickr.com/photos/briankusler/473933028/

got new blinds http://www.flickr.com/photos/briankusler/435491323/

ok and OMFG you bought a housE!! that's cool. my cousin brendaK lives
in tracy... out by all the windmills. ninja, yoo gonna need hella AC
cuz it's HOT out there! congrats!! let karim pick his la-z-boy chair
and nothing else :)

hi to your parents for me!

miss u 2!
: b

charlie fucking sheen...

2007-04-10T15:27:00.000-07:00

god i love the onion sometimes.... excerpt from this

I'm the biggest cash crop in three countries. Who can say that about crystal meth? Bakersfield, California? I am an international powerhouse: For every ounce of me you've snorted, at least two people have died. I'm talking deadly airlifts out of the jungle, thrilling speedboat shootouts, spectacular daylight assassinations of politicians, executions of informants, electrodes on villagers' genitals—name it, it's there. And I'm not even counting the me-fueled spree killings.

Know what? Fuck you. I'm no sloppy seconds. You know who's doing me right now, as we speak? Charlie fucking Sheen. I don't need you. I'm a star. So suck it, you little corn-fed scarecrow. Go back to slopping pigs and huffing nail-polish remover, you raggedy-ass hick.

faces of wii

2007-04-07T17:27:00.001-07:00

faces of wii
Originally uploaded by bkusler.

other then DDR, i've never played a video game that actually made me sweat and left me sore the next day! so fun!

spanish CSP solar opening...

2007-04-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

check it out

best. icon. evar.

2007-04-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

in the newest cocoa mysql... genius. yes, those are people icons inside of a fucking toilet. whoever did this rules.

i love "visions of the future"

2007-04-05T17:08:00.000-07:00

emm, your mom called and she wants to know why her macbook doesn't have a talking bow-tie guy?

are we losing the hole in the wall?

2007-04-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

check out this bay times article about the battle to save the SOMA bars....

i've gnashed my teeth for years watching all the yuppie condos go up in SOMA. the battle between the partiers and the yuppies was inevitable. but even if we could somehow grandfather all the existing bars with 'immunity' from yuppie neighbor complaints, it still means that you can't ever open anything new.

many of my best memories in 10 years of living here take place at folsom and dore fests, the eagle, the lone star, and the powerhouse. being an engineer i keep thinking "it's 2007 isn't there technology to soundproof things?!" but it's more than that. SOMA neighbors actually tried to block the opening of an organic wine shop(!) because they didn't want another liquor establishment in their neighborhood. once people move in (especially square state transplants), they want to put up their "picket fence". oftentimes that sense of ownership is a good thing; it's why straight people in crummy neighborhoods often want the gay folk to move in -- "they'll clean the place up".

the castro is now a mix of empty storefronts (thanks land speculators!), title companies, pharmacies, and a couple chain stores. i live 6 blocks away and i almost never go there because... well, why would i? when i think about detour, pendulum, the original badlands, and all the other places i miss, it makes me even more grateful for the institutions we still have.

: b

If you would like to voice your opinion or concern on this matter letters can be sent to: President Dwight Alexander, San Francisco Planning Department, 1600 Mission St. Fifth Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103

Letters should be short and to the point, and I urge you to send them soon. The hearing on this matter is on May 10, beginning at 1:30 pm in Room 400 at City Hall.

update
apparently Mr. Meko has responded:

"I can't believe the Bay Times would allow someone to publish something so full of lies. Two of my neighbors, one of whom is a regular customer of the bar in question, have filed protests against the Hole in the Wall because they intend to create a brand new bar adjacent to their homes. I'm not sure how many of your readers would want a bar relocated next door to where they live. The assertions he made in this article are pure fantasy. I've never spoken to the author but this note that I wrote to someone who bothered to contact me sums up my feelings:

" I think both the Hole and the Eagle are great bars and I hope they go on forever. One of the things that makes them so much fun is the outlaw factor. Joe Banks and John Gardiner operate right at the edge of what's legal and acceptable but they've been established in this community for so long that I'd fight to defend their right to continue that tradition. My complaint is that they didn't give any thought to this new neighborhood they decided to move into. Huge difference. Nearly a hundred neighbors in close proximity. 98 units of affordable housing at Folsom/Dore. 140 units of SRO supportive housing with drug rehab programs going in directly across the street. Joe and John got bad advice about that location. I wrote a letter to their real estate agent last July outlining the challenges they would face but they decided to bully their way through all of this. It's turned into a nasty and divisive fight and I deeply regret it "

Jim Meko

evangelical environmentalism

2007-04-04T10:57:00.000-07:00

i just finished reading this:
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/50049

and posted the following to reddit
http://reddit.com/info/1fa2w/comments/c1fcip

this reads like an evangelicalal fantasy about the coming apocalypse where the wicked will get their come-uppance. if i wanted a sermon i'd go to church.

i'm astonished by americans' complete inability to take personal responsibility for changing things. i know plenty of "peak oil panicker" environmentalists who can't seem to find the cash to put solar panels on their houses but magically had enough home equity for a kitchen and bath remodel.

and this kind of defeatist sermon is used an an excuse for their apathy -- "solar's not going to solve our problems so why bother?", "wind's not going to solve our problems...", etc. well, shit, let's all just go buy Humvees then!

Sell your car. Move to the city. Walk and bike everywhere. Power your house with solar. Stop flying. Stop breeding. Support politicians who will tax the cars to fund their replacements. Don't be a fucking NIMBY -- encourage rather than fight dense housing and urban transport in your neighborhood. Spend some of your play money on drastically improving your energy consumption.

ultimately the most meaningful change from energy shortages will be price increases. position yourself NOW to be disproportionately less affected by them -- and in the process you might just make things a little better off for everyone.

missed it by 9 kph...

2007-04-03T14:40:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6521295.stm

574 kph. fastest steel-wheeled train ever. but they missed the japanese maglev record by 9 kph... the eastern high speed line to strasbourg is about to open. and they're raising the cruising speed from 300 to 320 on that stretch of track.

hm.

2007-04-03T01:08:00.001-07:00

hm.
Originally uploaded by bkusler.

someone told me once that MARTA (atlanta's bart) didn't allow any advertising for competing modes of transit. the new prius carpet-bomb advertising at montgomery station seems a perfect example of why they might have had such a policy in the first place. would MUNI have let them do a humvee carpet bombing?

"toss by ..."

2007-04-03T00:58:00.001-07:00

"toss by ..."
Originally uploaded by bkusler.

like with the office refrigerator, things going into the server closet get a "toss by" date put on them. our IMAP machine is getting a little long in the tooth (3+ years old) so it's going to get recycled while *we* have the time and energy to replace it. if i wait till something fails inevitably it'll happen right when i need it most and have the least amount of time and patience to deal. see #2 on this list:
www.misterorange.com/2005/12/top-10-system-administrator-...

luckily, in the inBetweenTime, some enterprising soul has taken our ridiculous IMAP configuration nightmare of years gone by and turned it into something simple:
cutedgesystems.com/software/MailServe/

we'll see if i like the software as much tomorrow after it's been put into production :P

wrong...

2007-04-02T22:47:00.000-07:00

if you don't know "my humps" by blackeyed peas, go here first:

then watch this:

(that dude looks just like my brother and has the exact same leathers, but jj SWEARS it's not him. hmm.)

then this:

(this is quite possibly the wrongest remake since tori amos did smells like teen spirit -- and there's a prominently featured red trellis-frame monster 695, so it's not off topic!)

best. wiki. evar.

2007-03-28T16:22:00.001-07:00

From: bk
Date: March 28, 2007 11:57:02 AM PDT
To: Deep's Social
Subject: Re: SOCIAL: web portal/resource

Confluence by Atlassian
http://www.atlassian.com/

we used this at CCS and it rocks. we'd tried about a zillion free and opensource wikis and none of them had the ease of use and robustness of features that confluence does. it's way more than just a wiki---
http://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/features/

they have a very generous non-profit license (last time i checked the product was free for non profits), and their support people are awesome. when i left CCS to start my own for-profit company, confluence was the very first thing i purchased. it's indispensable.

: b

On Mar 28, 2007, at 11:37 AM, Karen wrote:

Hey there,

I am working for a growing national nonprofit and we're looking for an online web portal to share information among our affiliates.

[snip]

Does anyone know if there out-of-the-box applications for this or will we need to contract with someone to create it?

Any ideas appreciated!

Karen

sorry eco-veil, i tried...

2007-03-27T10:42:00.000-07:00

i needed new blinds. after reading this story in treehugger about a new "cradle to cradle" design, i went through the somewhat byzantine process of finding a dealer for mechoshade's ecoveil line. several months later, the installer shows up and notices midway through that they're "wrong". the eco-veil fabric is too stiff or something and none of the roller mechanisms work. apparently this happens "a lot". given the eco mantra and the high price, you'd thing they'd have some kind of quality check before shipping...

they offered to send them back and reorder new ones, but with absolutely no estimated ship date. once i realized that these shades were either going to get trucked back to the factory for "rebirthing" or thrown into the installers' dumpster, i decided the most "ecological" thing to do was just order some regular ole' blinds from a company whose fabbing facility is in san jose. the top-down shade lets in so much more light. i love it.

omni directional LED lamp

2007-03-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

so as promised i ordered a couple of globe-style omni-directional LED lamps for use in non-flood lamp fixtures.

first of all, everyone seems to be backordered on the high-power, warm white bulbs. it's been crazy trying to find them.

this LYLED lamp arrived about a week ago (it has absolutely no brand name) and yeah, it's pretty much a no-go. had it been labeled "LED Bug Lamp" i'd be totally pleased with my purchase. but the lamp is basically yellow. so now it's powering my outdoor motion sensor light.

enlux (see below) is using a complex array of LEDs of varying colors to achieve their color temperature and you do pay a performance penalty for that. (a 22W enlux replaces a 75W incandescent). this no-name bulb uses a single type of yellowish LED and it only uses 10W.

$54 from ledlight.com

LED lamp update...

2007-03-23T17:14:00.000-07:00

ok so i love those enlux lamps (see previous posting) so much i bought a bunch of 'em for the zillion watt kitchen lighting fixtures.

i'm still quite happy with them, but i think i'd get the "neutral white" rather than the "warm white" if i had to do it all over again. once i had 10 of them a-blazin in the kitchen, it's a bit redder than i expected. i ordered one "neutral white" and it looks a lot more "normal", which totally surprised me. i guess it's just all the years of dealing with compact fluorescents -- if they don't say "warm white" you're getting that luvlay clinical blue glow that no one wants... so i didn't consider the neutral whites even for a second.

opencar networks...

2007-03-23T17:10:00.000-07:00

so i did something stupid. i forgot that i had a "deny everything" directive in robots.txt. and then i wondered why you couldn't find my company's site (opencar.net) on google. oops. luckily i've been so swamped with work (we build off-the-shelf carsharing hardware and software) that i didn't really need any extra traffic... but still -- feelin' pretty stoopit right about now....

i'm not taking it anymore...

2007-03-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

you know, i've spent my entire working life in the computer industry and i've heard 18 years of "normal folks" complaining about shoddy, bug-ridden programs and overpriced upgrades and slipped schedules. and i generally agreed with them and felt shame upon "my people".

and now that i've had the pleasure of owning my own home, several cars, and generally being a grown up for as long as i was a kid, i have this to say: the rest of you suck just as hard as we do! ever had your car repaired or your house painted? ever needed an emergency plumber? ever had carpet or blinds installed? and don't even get me started on getting the cable, the phone people, or the police to show up.

if the rest of you were shining beacons of professionalism and value pricing i'd own the geek bashing. but you're not. so i won't. the next time a non-techie relative emails me a "what a car would be like if microsoft built it" rant, i'm going to reply with "what the doctors office would be like if you could get a completely new body by simply rebooting?" or "what computers would be like if the user died whenever they crash."

/rant

sending email via SMS

2007-03-08T15:20:00.000-08:00

for a work project i've been researching this and it's been such a royal pain in ass trying to find a comprehensive listing of providers and instructions.

to send an email from an SMS (no, i don't mean POP, IMAP, MMS, or other nonsense; i mean instructing the SMS gateway to deliver the message to an email address rather than a phone number) to this:

tmobile (aka tmo t-mo t-mobile)
- write the message like this:
"user@domain.com rest of your message, don't exceed 160 chars total"
(note there's a plain ole' space between the addy and your message)
- send the message to the phone number 500.
i have tried and verified this one personally

cingular
- same thing, only send it to the number +121

fido
- message needs "mail user@domain.com rest of your message"
- send message to 3436

attws
- send message to 0000

rogers
- send message to +0000000000
i have tried and verified this one personally

cool LED lamps

2007-02-28T00:11:00.000-08:00

so i'm sorry but i hate CF bulbs for indoor lighting. there are a few with the right color temperature but being that i live in the fag-tastic castro district of san fran, every light switch in my house has a dimmer on it. and the dimmable CFs turn a nassssty shade of blue when you dim them -- even the "warm white" ones. plus, my inner geek tells me that those CFs are just a placeholder until the vastly-superior LED lamps become "real".

well they're real.
http://www.enluxled.com/120v-white-datasheet.php

i bought one of these to try it out and it arrived this morning. the color temperature is indistinguishable from incandescent. it looks perfect. it dims nicely thru most of its range. the only critique i have is that under extremely low dimming situations, the light turns green. so unless you're using it in your makeout room, you're not really going to notice. here's some pix (more on my flickr account):

( note: only the center light is LED )

the best part:
you'll save between $180 - $330 over the lifetime of the bulb

here's some fun with excel:

(this doesn't take into account that electricity prices typically grow faster than inflation.)

yes, they're $90 each. but you'll save 4x that over its lifespan. if you've got some track, flood, or recessed can lighting in your house, seems like a no-brainer. they come in a bunch of colors and three shades of white. because the LEDs are mounted directly onto a PCB, they don't make omni-directional, globe-type bulbs. i've ordered some of those from another manufacturer and i'll post some pix next week...

UPDATE

citations:
incandescent lifepan from GE's own specifications for r30 flood
LED lifespan from enlux's website
incandescent bulb price from froogle
average power price by state from DOE
CO2 emissons per kwh from DOE

funny old email...

2007-02-27T13:03:00.000-08:00

about gay merit badges:

From: Kelly Hawk
Date: May 20, 1999 1:05:33 PM PDT
To: brian kusler
Subject: Re: SecJ-List: man..you kids are too damn serious...

before they'll issue you gay citizenship card, you have to show proof of owning at least 8 different styles of underwear from at least 3
different manufacturers, and prove that you don't own any underwear that comes in three (or more)-packs or cost less than $10.00 per pair.

the system sorta works like boyscout merit badges -- you have to have a certain number of them to qualify (you don't have to have them all)... so i could skip the underwear requirement, say, if i got the aerobics instructor or maybe the hairdresser badge. some of my other badges:

- shoes (the badge has a teeny, stitched likeness of imelda marcos)
- cooking (you should try my pumpkin risotto, or my chicken satay)
- expensive haircare products (a new one i just started working on after abandoning it in high school)
- snooty restaurants (much easier now that i'm in SF)
- chickrock (this is usually a lesbian "required" badge, but i'm doing some crossover work)
- chicksports (ditto)
- world traveler (earned this while going to school in germany)
- fagcar (i own a VW)
- gossip (i actually have a master-badge in this -- i'm like a jedi gossip)
- community therapist (how the hell could i master the gossip without everyone pouring out their souls to me?)
- piercings (ones done with gun don't count; single-ear piercings are considered a suburban white-trash demerit)
- there's more, but i've got work to do, and i'm trying to spare the gentle eyes of the secJ crowd from the numerous sexual badges i'm trying very hard not to talk about... (that trucker was worthy of a new badge category... whew!)

there's the added twist of demerit badges as well (e.g., having instant coffee in your cupboard, serving wine from a bottle with a cap instead of a cork, knowing too much about sports stats -- of course i'm not guilty of any of these...), but that's a topic for another email.

anyway--
bk

Now that you started enumerating them, don't forget the:
- opera
- musicals
- interior decorating
- towels/dinnerware/stemware/etc
- "camping" (I think the badge shows a designer-tent with large Honda generator next to it)
- party drugs (if you peel the badge apart, an emergency supply is underneath)
- clubwear ownership (seemly naked person with a single stitch on them)
- Castro/Village pilgrammage (I guess we're exempt from this now)

While somewhat outdated, I can't resist adding one from steel magnolias:
- track lighting ownership (or in our case, profuse use of dimmers)

Well, I have to get back to work, too. This is fun. I think there's a web page in here somewhere!
-- Kelly --

octavia boulevard plan

2007-02-07T17:18:00.000-08:00

below is my letter to the planning commission about the market/octavia plan
http://livablecity.org/campaigns/market%26octavia.html

Hisashi Sugaya
San Francisco Planning Department

Hello.

I'm resident of the Market/Octavia neighborhood, and I'm writing to express my support of the Market and Octavia plan. Specifically, I'm very excited about eliminating minimum parking requirements from new developments. Our neighborhood already has first rate access to transit, City CarShare, and taxis, and our central location means most of the city is a quick trip by bike or foot. This prompted me to sell my car back in 2004 and I've never been happier (no more parking tickets, break-ins, orbiting 45 minutes for parking...) And I used the proceeds from the car to put solar panels on our 1905 Victorian!

While I understand the knee-jerk reaction of some of my neighbors ("Parking is bad enough already!"), I have to politely disagree with how they're looking at the problem. A huge factor in me going car-free was that owning a car in this neighborhood stinks. If my car had not been an expensive hassle, I'd probably still have it and the snowball of positive effects from going car free wouldn't be happening:

-- One less car taking up space on the streets
-- One more bike coalition member
-- One more muni rider
-- One more City CarShare customer
-- Less pollution and dependence on fossil fuel
-- 3.5kW more solar panels fighting global warming
-- More money spent at awesome, walkable local businesses (Golden Produce) than at drivable big boxes (Trader Joes)
-- Better health because I'm walking and biking more
-- a zillion others but you get the drift

This plan is a chance to start a thousand more of those positive snowballs down the proverbial hill. We cannot build a dense, urban, pedestrian-centered neighborhood that still manages to make car ownership a breeze. Nor should we try. This country's car-centric culture is a big part of the predicament we find ourselves in today. With San Francisco's history of urban and environmental leadership, I have to ask: If we can't build a shining, functional example of post-automobile urban living, who will?

Sincerely,
Brian Kusler
San Francisco, CA

p.s. Unfortunately I'm out of town the rest of the week, so I'm unable to attend the hearings in person.

from a story about von dutch

2007-01-11T22:55:00.000-08:00

and what the brand had become compared to its roots:

Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate.

true about so many things

good quotes..

2007-01-11T22:53:00.000-08:00

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are harmony.
-Mahatma Gandhi

I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.
-Albert Einstein

same thing, better design

2007-01-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

from:
http://www.diykyoto.com/

i soooooo want one of these! i wish jonathan ive would design one of these for apple to mass market to the world. i know it's not really in their mission statement, but still...

you've altered the results by measuring them!

2007-01-10T22:08:00.000-08:00

from:
http://power2save.ca/index2.html

spent your solar panel money on yourself again this year? here's a nice little consolation prize you can buy the planet -- it's supposed to reduce your energy consumption by 20%...

also see:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/powercost_home.php

if only i had a place to park it...

2007-01-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

from: http://www.teslamotors.com/learn_more/our_company.php

such an eloquent summary of how i feel -- we need environmental fabulousness and ingenuity not environmental self-flagellation and austerity...

Electric “Punishment Cars”

Historically, it seemed to us that electric cars had been designed by people who thought we really shouldn‘t be driving at all - but if we must, we should suffer every minute of it. Electric cars have had terrible range and embarrassing styling. To those who say electric cars have been tried and failed we say, of course electric cars won‘t catch on if no one actually wants to drive them.

Changing Perceptions

We needed to change perceptions of electric vehicles in a big way. To make electric cars a viable alternative, we set out to build one that was gorgeous and thrilling to drive.

Our first car, the Tesla Roadster, isn‘t a plan, pipedream or prototype; this car exists and is for sale now. It‘s a no-compromise driver‘s car that can accelerate faster than a Porsche 911 and hit a top speed of nearly twice what the law permits. With a range of 250 miles on a single charge, you can use it all day long and not worry you‘ll run out of juice. Just plug it in at night the same way you drop your cell phone into its charger, and sleep well, without guilt.

mmm superconducting wind turbines....

2007-01-10T20:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.amsuper.com/products/applications/windEnergy/index.cfm

quote of the day/week/year/whatever

2007-01-07T18:39:00.000-08:00

on buying a ducati after owning a japanese bike:

If you have previous expectations based on the bulletproof
reliability and predictability of Japanese bikes, prepare to relax
your standards a bit. You are going from a fembot to Sofia Loren
-- Lou on SF Gay Sports Bike Nite