Read more about it here.

I am also proud that we will have a professor of constitutional law as our president, who seems to understand the role of the president as the executive, who carries out and executes the will of the people, and is not “the decider,” as it were. It’s also nice to have a Vice President who understands he is not the leader of the senate. See, our country was founded by some excessively intelligent people who debated and theorized and figured out a system of democracy that is truly genius, with a balance of power and safeguards against tyranny. It’s only fitting that we should expect our president to share that understanding.

I believe Obama will be a good president. Indeed, our standing in the world has already improved, and that’s a good sign. Time will tell if he can live up to the expectations, but I have hope that someone who understands just how diverse and complex this country is can have a chance to bring it together to its full potential.

Anyway, here in Berkeley, the people rejoiced and danced in the streets (literally) with joy. It’s amazing to see Real Americans ™ happy and proud for their country again for all the right reasons.

Sadly I’m ashamed of California for passing Proposition 8 - a ban on same-sex marriages. I believe the only difference is in knowing real people who it affects, and treating them like the human beings they are. I know society will welcome this equality someday (young voter statistics make that impressively clear), I just don’t understand why it must be delayed at the expense of so many people.

Someone’s watching from a webcam up there.

And down here… proof of technological advancement. This is normal now.

O-bam-a, O-bam-a

Fireworks, and smiles all around. This was such a happy pleasant mob, easy to walk around in, very courteous.

See the whole album here.

It was a great thing to experience so many people happy about their democracy. I think the world is proud of us, and we should be too. Thank you to everyone who voted, and don’t forget - democracy does not stop at the ballot box. Keep on caring about your country and having the courage and perseverance to help lead it in the right direction. We’ve still got a lot of work to do, and in case you forgot (like I had), you can make a difference if you put some energy into it. Thank you.

A small milestone, but a nice one nonetheless. Thanks to Slicehost for some seriously great hosting! Clearly, I have been 100% satisfied over the past year. They were recently bought by Rackspace, but I’m sure they’ll continue to have great service.

You may also notice the Mac OSXness. Well, I’ve been waiting for the next MacBook Pro upgrade, and since Apple released some new ones last month, I decided I’d pick one up, and here I am, the proud owner of a 15″ machined-aluminium shiny-screened MacBook Pro. I think I’ll write more on it later, but in short, angered reports of glossy screens stabbing eyeballs and blinding users have been greatly exaggerated. This thing rocks

A lot has happened in the past year, but the server kept on rockin through it all. Here’s hopin it lasts to 730!

Let me try to put this album, Brooke Waggoner’s new “Heal for the Honey”, into words. This is difficult, please bear with me.

Most albums are like candy. You’ve got some that are like skittles, where it’s all sweet and tangy, or pop rocks (which works amazingly well with this little analogy) or a snicker’s bar, or M&M’s, or really good dark chocolate, or the mixed jellybean bag where only two or three flavors are actually worth eating and the rest are just filler. But most albums are pretty much candy - you’ve got good candy and bad candy, but it’s all pretty sweet.

This album is like really smooth milk chocolate with a 20 karat diamond embedded in it.

Let me explain. At first, especially if you’ve listened to Brooke’s EP (and you should, right now - it’s amazing and free on her web site), you will bite into Heal for the Honey and think, hmm, this is a little different. It’s not quite the same as before, some different flavors here, some synthesizer, but it tastes good so far. then you get to the end of the first track and hit that moment, that shocking moment, when you discover a diamond - a real diamond - that moment when shivers run up and down your spine and your mouth hangs open in awe of what just happened - of what a simple piece of music can do - of the sheer emotion bound up in it.

These are the moments that make this CD. They are immaculate and amazing climaxes, perfectly arranged and using the full power of sound to bring forth every bit of power that music can hold, and perfectly balanced with the poetry behind them, and well contrasted against everything around them. These are moments that other music very rarely gets close to achieving, and she does it in 7 of 10 tracks here! Maybe it’s her classical composition training, or the fact that she’s a piano virtuoso and not just a great singer, but somehow she puts into her music the amazing power that’s always been possible in this genre, and you can imagine what kind of album that makes.

Coming down from that music-induced high, let me say it did take me a little while to really like this album - some of the lyrics are slightly repetitive, which I’m convinced she does intentionally for contrast, and the songs are something new - but once I did listen to the whole thing all the way through, I really *really* liked it. First, understand: this is not a continuation of her EP. This is not an album where all the tracks sound the same. They all have a distinct personality; same basic stylings (sometimes) but they can be whatever they feel like being. There are two that get stuck in my head. There are at least four that give me shivers down the spine every time I hear them. There are three that are sad and optimistic at the same time. Two are poppy and fun. All of them are easy to listen to and coherent. There’s not a bad track, only ones that you don’t fully know yet. They’re complex; not good or bad, but both at once and sad and beautiful and sometimes amazing. How much more real does it get?

And in the end, that’s what it comes down to. This is a complex and beautiful set of songs done by a woman who knows music so well that she can just play with it and put real life into it and amazing things happen.

I’m desperately trying to find bad things to say about this album, because I sound like a fool giving such a gushingly positive review, but it’s really hard to find something to criticize. It’s like finding a diamond in your chocolate, remember? This album is solid. Each song is such a coherent and well put-together work that I almost feel like you can’t take any part of anything out or change anything to get something different and still have the same song. They achieve a little bit of humanity, and that sort of puts them on a different level from the average. But, it’s still just music, and it’s about relationships and life and the same stuff as the rest — it’s just different, unique, complex, and really good.

So, it’s hard to put into words, but basically, somewhere in “The Wrong” around 3:19 might be part of the meaning of life. Listen and you’ll understand.

– Update –

Okay, so reading that though and listening to the album through just one more time, I decided I was a little overzealous with my praise. I attribute this to my crazy tendency to be affected by well-timed musical contrasts, of which there are many in this album, and they are done very well. I do like this album a lot (clearly) but I actually think her first (Fresh Pair of Eyes EP) was better. I liked the intimate style of the EP and the personal, touching lyrics, and the better use of words and music together. This new one seems sort of light on the words and heavy on the power, and there’s a bit too much repetition and that’s ever so slightly annoying.

There, that’s more balanced. I still think this is an excellent album and worth checking out, and it is a level above most others in the genre, such that it actually finds that sweet spot where it has a personality, and that’s saying a lot of music these days.

Brooke Waggoner - Heal for the Honey (iTunes/Amazon/Myspace Site)

My contribution (the first large one in a while) was the move/copy/rename interface in the Edit screens of the administrator’s control panel. It allows you to move, copy, or rename any image or album without losing any data associated with the item. This is a welcome new feature and was one of the biggest complaints we heard from users, and hopefully it satisfies that need well. Let me know what you think.

I’m really impressed with how far Zenphoto has come since 1.1. We now have full translation support and a half-dozen included major languages with more to come, a full plugin system, automated setup, video and audio support, tagging, RSS feeds, password protected private albums… the list goes on.

I’d like to personally thank the Zenphoto team for all their hard work in continuing the improvement and usefulness of their software, all while keeping it true to the Zenphoto philosophy of being simple, useful, and flexible. Great work!

Well, during work I do two things: work, and listen to music. It’s a good combination. I’ve been using a few different music listening services, but mostly Pandora recently (especially now that they have this awesome desktop player, using Adobe’s AIR framework). I go on a Pandora spree to discover things, bookmark all the songs I like, and then go to Rhapsody or last.fm to listen when I want. If I like a whole album, I’ll buy it as mp3 off Amazon or go pick up the CD, and it gets into my collection, which I play with Winamp as I have for many years, or in my car on CD. When I get tired of a set of new stuff, there’s always more to discover. It’s a good music lifecycle.

So, read on for a list and comments on some great recent discoveries.

I started on several Pandora stations of artists I currently like, including Brooke Waggoner, The Weepies, and Sufjan Stevens. Most are in the folk/indie category like those, which just happens to be my current taste in tunes.

1. A Fine Frenzy - One Cell in the Sea

Alison Sudol (aka A Fine Frenzy), mostly known for her more popular song, “Almost Lover,” has a great variety of tracks on this album, 14 of them in fact, from energetic songs like “Come On, Come Out,” and a perfect joyous chorus in “You Picked Me”, to sweeping built-up melodies (reminiscent of Brooke Waggoner’s grand crescendos) in “The Minnow & the Trout.” She covers so many ranges of emotions and musical varieties within her style — this is not one of those albums where every song sounds the same, and it turns out to be one I’m listening to a lot. This is probably my favorite of this current batch.

2. Holly Brook - Like Blood Like Honey

I also found this album by Pandora, and kept listening mostly because there was a riff she sang on the track “Wanted” that I could not get out of my head. This is slightly more traditional and more poppy female vocalist and songwriter fare, but the whole album is better than I expected. There’s more piano and strings here, and some great musicality and catchy choruses. Very enjoyable to listen to, with a good variety of calmer and more energetic and catchy songs.

3. Kelli O’Hara - Wonder in the World

Kelli O’Hara is a broadway actress. She’s had a handful or so of Tony nominations, and been in such shows as South Pacific, The Pajama Game, and The Light in the Piazza. This is not how I discovered her (I’m not that into musicals) but rather again through Pandora. The gem on the album is the first track, “The Sun Went Out,” written by her husband. It’s a tender, sweet, slightly jazzy, unique little tune, but — this is the key — her voice is smooth like silk and makes the song. The rest of the album is worth it just for the pleasure of hearing her voice on a few old songs, “And So It Goes,” “Fire and Rain” and others, as well as a few of her own songs, and all in all it’s a good collection. Did I mention her voice is amazing?

4. Kate Klim - Up and Down and Up Again

Kate Klim is much more of a traditional female singer-songwriter, singing about relationships and life how she sees it, and the album ends up being fairly consistently good. Certainly some tracks are better than others - the first, “I Choose Me” is a good starter, and the rest of the album is simply easy to listen to and thoughtful. The stand-out track is “Gepetto,” with some real catchy melodies and a slightly deeper meaning than most of the others. All in all this is a very good album, and one I’ve been listening to a lot as well despite being somewhat formulaic.

Those are just four albums, there have been a few more as well which will perhaps make it to another post. Check my playlist for up-to-date stats on what I’m listening to (I have no musical privacy, haha). As always I recommend (and thank!) Pandora for being amazing. Enjoy the music, and feel free to comment with some of your own current favorites.

Not that I’m perpetuating stereotypes, because I like all kinds of weather, but this actually does happen in the summer!

But I’ve decided to start fresh. We’ve finally got some new photos to grace the top of the page, and hopefully some new musings in the next couple weeks. I figured there’s no reason to keep being silent just because I have been for so long. Might as well pick it up and get back to normal.

So who’s still reading this anyway? What would you like to read about? I’m looking for new stuff to write and new paths to follow. Suggestions welcome

It took me a while, but after about a week of tweaking, recompiling the kernel, finding a stable driver for my 10MBps network card, and making X work with my video card, it finally was up and running. Just the installation taught me a ton about computers, hardware, Linux, and problem solving skills that would surely help me in the future.

But I couldn’t really use it after that. I spent maybe 6 months with it installed as a dual-boot with Windows 98, but there just weren’t good replacements for my daily desktop apps back then — no games, no web development software (I used Dreamweaver back then… <em>shudder</em>), none of those little tools I had come to rely on in Windows. Like writing a journal, my Linux use stagnated and I eventually deleted the partition to make room for more games.

I went through 5-10 distros in all after that, maybe once a year I’d give it another shot. I tried RedHat again, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandrake, Debian, Gentoo again, and then Ubuntu. I’ve installed or used Ubuntu exclusively for the last few years (I’ll explain my reasons later) and I’ve enjoyed it for the most part.

Last week, I installed Ubuntu 7.10, Gutsy Gibbon. I also had an epiphany that the names of Ubuntu releases are in alphabetical order (Dapper, Edgy, Feisty, Gutsy) and I was no longer confused. Hooray.

The verdict: We’ve come a long way. Installation not only took minutes, but found all of my hardware without trouble, including enabling all 3D functions of my graphics card and detecting an obscure USB WiFi adapter. I am impressed thus far.

I experienced some instability after that, mainly when rotating the 3D desktop cube (amazing) and watching 6 movies at once (six times more amazing) in Mplayer. OK, maybe I went a little overboard, but a crash is a crash nonetheless. Turned out that updating the nVidia drivers (to version 169.09, if anyone’s searching for a solution) fixed that completely, as I verified by running 12 movies while rotating them on a 12-sided 3D surface (twelve times more amazing!). No crashes, no slowdowns. Things are smooth now.

I like Ubuntu because they seem to get at least part of the “big picture” — see, most Linux developers and hardcore users will point out feature-by-feature that Linux is better than or equal to Windows, MacOS X, and all other operating systems in existence. What they don’t get is that individual features don’t mean jack, it’s how they fit together that matters. If you’re missing one part of the puzzle, then people won’t care what other parts you got right. I think it’s important to understand that when making any software, but especially an operating system, whose job is by definition to integrate all the other parts.

Ubuntu at least begins to get this. They’re starting to bring things together through consistent visual design, consistent interface design, a complete suite of default applications, useful menus and preferences and utilities. They’ve also got some awesome 3D effects, but that wouldn’t matter much if there wasn’t any reason to use them.

So, in general, it’s finally a Linux I can imagine using every day. When I’m done with my work that requires Windows (what can I do, it’s corporate enterprise software…) I reboot and get into Ubuntu and for the first time in the history of my use of Linux, I don’t miss anything.

I think that’s a big deal. We’ve now got a community-built free OS that’s a real competitor to Windows and even OSX in some ways, and that’s a big accomplishment. More choices are always good for the user, and I’m finally a happy user with a great alternative to Windows.

As part of my consulting gig I work on “Enterprise Java” code. I just had to write this line after receiving two separate exceptions on the matter (types obfuscated to protect the guilty (and they are oh so guilty… I won’t get into that)):

String somenumber = (String) ((TypeAttribute) TypeCache.getTypeFromCache("Thingie") .getAttribute("someNumber")).getValue((Thingie) object);

You’re a freaking computer! Figure it out for me!

Also, xkcd, as always, says it the best.

It’s revealing to be a Java programmer every 2 weeks, and a Ruby and Flex developer the next 2 weeks, with PHP and JavaScript by night. I understand everything about why static typing is good and proper, but today, when computers (and compilers especially) are powerful and intelligent, I think the computer should do what a computer is great for, namely figuring out extremely complex yet orderly relationships between types of things, leaving the programmer to focus on much more important stuff.

When I’m coding in Java, it takes me 50 lines of rudimentary logic and typecasting muck in a new inline comparator class to do something as simple as sorting custom objects.

In Ruby it’s a one-liner. I don’t care how much less efficient that is for the computer (and it’s not), that is worth its weight in gold in programmer time and code elegance.

I enjoy dynamically typed languages, and any good programmer knows that it’s programmers having fun that makes good software, not programmers spending 50% of their time dealing with code that gets in their way. What kills me most is that computers are really good at automatically doing the stuff that’s not fun–that is in fact what they’re designed to do–and there are people who have fun making that stuff fast, so why don’t we just let them?