Geocaching premium

Well, I coughed up the $30 and became a GeoCaching Premium Member, and, in addition to the satisfaction of helping this free service keep running, it appears that there are indeed really cool benefits already. First of all, I can do the sort of searches that I have wanted to do all along (search by difficulty, cache type, and radius, and have the results sent to me as a Easy-GPS file every week, so that I can just upload it to my GPSr). But, more importantly, they seem to be very open to suggestions of other member services, and I have a few suggestions.

Anyways, we have three caches lined up to look for today, so we’ll see how it goes.

GPSDrawing

I read a web site about GPS Drawing, and decided I should try it, if only on a small scale. So, I drew a dog. It is a total of 0.77 miles of track, and is about 2000 ft from nose to tail I think. And my feet were very very cold and wet. But it was kinda fun.

This is in the large empty field behind Beaumont Center. I’m sure I looked very odd stumbling around randomly in the field for a half hour or so.

The tip of the tail is roughly at 38° 01.131N, 84° 22.576W

Resumés, self-promotion, and employers

David has been thinking about posting one’s resumé on one’s web site, when one is not actively seeking employment. Evidentally, his employer find this to be a problem, and David does not. He asked for some commentary, and we talked about it briefly on IRC. So, here’s the discussion, or portions thereof, as he requested I post:

David: This is going to be a big time discussion with my boss.. so I’m looking to have a discussion ahead of time to work out my thoughts on the issues and to be able to respond to him well.

Me: Well, I barely have a resume, and I’m not sure I have any particular opinion on the matter, although I would think that I, personally, would stop distributing my resume if I was not thinking of moving to a different job. And, indeed, distributing your resume makes your co-workers and employer jumpy, and perhaps anxious to replace you with someone with a little more perceived “loyalty”

David: do you see having a resume posted as being eqal to “distributing” it?

Me: Yes. It is more passive, but apart from that, not any different. Passive distribution, rather than active distribution, perhaps. 😉 On the other hand, writing books can be active distribution of one’s resume too, and has resulted in at least 3 job offers for me. But that tends to be more accepted by employers, even though it is probably almost as effective self-marketing as a resume.

David: I would think that speaking at conferences would do that too.

Me: Yes.
Wes: you could look at the resume as being a logical extension of an “about me” section of a personal web site

Me: And I expect that if couched in terms of “about me” rather than “resume”, the same people would have no problem with it. It’s all about perceptions. The perception being, is this person actively seeking to abandon us, given the opportunity. I attended a VERY interesting talk a few weeks ago. It was at the Southland lunch meeting thingy. It was a guy talking about the difference between our generatation (“X”) and the Baby Boomers. You are experiencing EXACTLY one of the scenarios that he described. Except that your boss is not a whole lot older than us – just a little – but I think he fits the demographic. What they look on as disloyalty, we look on as looking out for our families – ie, loyalty, but to a different thing. But that’s just one aspect of it. It was a really fascinating presentation, because he really had things nailed pretty well.

Wes: I suspect that work history has something to do with one’s perceptions too.

Me: It does, certainly, but so does our generational history – the world that we grew up in is very different from the pre-Kennedy world.

Wes: did he have suggested solutions, or just good observations of the way things are?

Me: He had a few suggestions, but mostly it was about education, and understanding where the other folks are coming from. His best suggestion was about finding a mentor from the other side of the generation gap. And, contrariwise, organizations like the Moose Lodge and Masons that are losing membership at a huge rate shoudl be pushing the notion of mentorship, rather than trying to make people feel guilty about not belonging to charitable organizations.

… Then some discusussion here about loyalty – what does it mean, who is loyal to whom, and why we should be expected to be “loyal” toa company that makes no particular pretence at being “loyal” to us. …

Me: I felt loyalty to [former employer], because of the people there, and because [CEO] was, in a very real sense, a father figure to the people that worked for him. That went away completely and overnight with the [Big Company] purchase. [Big Company] is all about grabbing as much power as you can, as fast as you can, and god help anyone that gets in the way. At least, that was my impression. This was best illustrated by the way that the CEO [ie, the CEO of Big Company] was rewarded for his deceit [lied on his resume, and, when this was found out, it was swept under the carpet and he got a raise].

… then, one more interesting comment …

Me: Another comment he (the speaker I listened to) made, which I’m not entirely sure I agree with, is that we (gen x) are far more motivated by the job itself (is it fun? is it challenging? do we get to work with or meet cool people?) than with the financial compensation. He cited ball players who, after a game (whether they won or lost) take their kids out on the field to get autographs signed by the other team. Which is all well and good to say, but they *are* making millions.

Watch the watchers

politechbot.com: Steve Mann and Surveil. Cam Players on how to watch the watchers

RoUS pointed me to this article, and it got me thinking about the rationale behind prohibitions against taking photographs in public transportation terminals, like airports, train stations, and bus stations. It seems, once again, a way to keep honest people from doing honest things, while in no way deterring criminals from doing criminal things.

Criminals don’t use 35mm cameras to take their pictures, they use concealed cameras which are … well, concealed. So this law effectively ensures that all pictures of the inside of airports are in the hands of criminals, rather than honest people. In what way does this make sense?

Likewise, if the airport people are taking pictures of me, and I wish to take pictures of them, they will likely take offence. But why? Why is it any more invasive for me to take a picture of them? After all, I am a private citizen, and they are the employees of the United States Government – my employee, in a sense. In that regard, it would seem that I have more right to a picture of them than they do of me.

So, the next time I travel, I will, without question, give this a try. I’ll probably peacefully comply if asked to delete pictures, since it is exceedingly unlikely that the flunkies at that rung of the food chain would have a better response than the “following orders” one, but you never know.

Chrisman First Vineyard Reserve

The Chrisman Mill First Vineyard Reserve is way way WAY underpriced. So, when you go to buy your bottle, offer them a few bucks extra, and tell them to pass it on to Chris and Denise. With a smoky, jammy nose, and a wonderful dark berry taste, and delightful deep purple color. This is the wine for a evening talking with friends, and, although it is indeed better with food, it is so wonderful by itself that it is hard to discard that option. Also excellent with a good book and a fire.

While I’d recommend that you keep it for a few years before opening, it is very yummy now, so get several bottles. Also note that it throws a lot of sediment, so be prepared for that, or even have a filter on hand.

mrtg and apache

Yes, I’m a stats freak. So, here’s how you get mrtg to plot your Apache server activity. (Note, I’ve been told that mod_watch also does this, but I have not looked at it yet.)

Here’s /usr/local/bin/apache-stats :

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# apache-stats 
use LWP::Simple;

my $stats=get("http://servername/server-status?auto");
$stats =~ s/.*BusyServers: (d+)//;
my $b = $1;
print "$bn";
$stats =~ s/.*IdleServers: (d+)//;
print $b + $1 . "n";
print "nn";

Note that in Apache 2.0, you want “BusyThreads” rather than “BusyServers”, and similarly for IdleThreads.

Then, in your mrtg.cfg, 

Target[apache_child]: `/usr/local/bin/apache-stats`
MaxBytes[apache_child]: 100000
Options[apache_child]: growright,gauge,nopercent,dorelpercent
Title[apache_child]: Apache Statistics
PageTop[apache_child]: <h1>Active Apache child processes</h1>
XSize[apache_child]: 500
YSize[apache_child]: 200
WithPeak[apache_child]: dwmy
YLegend[apache_child]: No. of child processes
ShortLegend[apache_child]: processes
LegendI[apache_child]:  active:
LegendO[apache_child]:  total:

Tweak as needed. That should get you started.

Investigating war deaths

CNN.com – U.S. investigates checkpoint shooting – Apr. 1, 2003

I’m finding myself continually comparing the events of the last few weeks to World War II. One of the things I’ve found interesting is stories like the one above. People died in a war, and we are conducting an investigation. Had this happened in WWII, it would have been noted as casualties of war, and that would be it.

The other area in which the comparison is interesting is our (the public’s) attitude towards the enemy. In WWII, the enemy were barely human, and things I’ve read from the time speak of them in terms that would be considered deeply politically incorrect today, even among people strongly supporting the war.

I suppose the story above really is about our attitude about the enemy. Saddam Hussein is the enemy, and the people in his nation are merely victims. And while this was at least as much the case in 1940’s Germany, we certainly did not view it that way.

I heard a fascinating quote on the news today, from an Iraqi soldier who had defected. It was something like “Why are the Americans bombing innocent Iraqi soldiers?” Huh?

The Margin Is Too Narrow