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Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
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10:40 pm
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Well this has been a delightful day.
In August I went into the emergency room with chest pains (I really ought to update my journal more.). While I technically had a primary physician, I really didn't like her and hadn't seen her in three years. The doctor at the hospital, armed with my health insurance information (Did I mention I'm insured? That's supposed to make things easier, you know.), set up an appointment with a new doctor who had openings for new primary patients. I called my health insurance company (That's HealthNet, as it is well to know whom to revile.) and changed my primary doctor to this person, and they allowed as how all this was well and good.
I went for my first appointment today. My new doctor doesn't accept and never has accepted HealthNet. My future, once, and never doctor's receptionist is a wonderful person; she set me up with a different doctor at the same practice who does accept Healthnet with an appointment in only two weeks.
And this is a small part of why I'm in favor of a single-payer healthcare system.
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
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9:19 pm - Cross-selling at Amazon
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I sent in an Amazon order a few days ago. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) redbird asked me to add several different leather conditioning things for a new pair of boots she bought. Since then, Amazon has been recommending I also buy 120 Days of Sodom.
I don't get it; I'm still not sure how I'd rub mink oil into a book.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Sunday, June 14th, 2009
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12:50 pm - Red-throated loon
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| Monday, March 16th, 2009
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10:09 pm - Nine things about Oracle
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With kudos to papersky:
SQL is not a language. It cannot express your heart's desire, though it may bleed you a little.
Larry Ellison is only in it for the money. Oh, and the e-penis.
The answer that comes out will only mirror the data.
You can put your heart, your soul, and all the hours of your day into it. Still, you will not meet your deadline.
Relational is overrated, unless you don't know what you're asking.
You don't know what you're asking.
The answer that comes out will only mirror the data, but it will still be unexpected: write general error handlers.
Really, Larry Ellison is only in it for the money. But he's a generous guy so you can be in it, too. Call yourself a consulting DBA.
Unlike all the other oracles on all the other worlds, with study, dedication, technique, and prayer you can achieve internal consistency.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, January 31st, 2009
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10:03 pm - Short bus
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| Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
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11:19 pm
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| Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
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10:13 pm
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A thought, on observing the wide variety of costumes at the Renaissance Faire last weekend:
Time-traveling robot is always period garb.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Thursday, September 25th, 2008
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8:00 pm - I don't get the bailout
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There's one major point I still haven't figured out on the whole bailout thing.
Just how is it they're going to get all that money transferred to Halliburton?
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Thursday, September 18th, 2008
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7:42 pm - We all like sheep
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Take a picture of yourself right now. Don’t change your clothes. Don’t fix your hair. Just take a picture. Post that picture with no editing. (Except maybe to get the image size down to something reasonable. Don’t go posting an eight megapixel image.) Include these instructions.
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(comment on this)
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| Sunday, September 14th, 2008
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9:15 pm
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Back in 1993 I was working as a programmer for Prebon Yamane, then one of the world's leading wholesale currency brokerages. The head of the swaps desk (whose name I can't remember now, which shows why I'm not a broker) gave a series of talks on the underlying structure of the swaps and derivatives market. He was a pretty cool guy, and the only person there with both authority and a real feel for the mathematics of the industry. He could propose a new swap and have it accepted; he could explain why an existing swap was fucked and have the brokerage arbitrage the hell out of it until everyone else stopped trading it.
When he described the basic interest rate swap to me, I asked him what would happen if one of the counterparties went bankrupt overnight. He said that couldn't happen because (a) the companies that the wholesale currency brokerages allowed to be counterparties were all too big and too well run, and that (b) it couldn't possibly happen overnight; there'd be months of indications leading up to it.
In the matter of Lehman Brothers, and for that matter Bear Sterns, I find myself wanting to say just one thing to him:
I told you so.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
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10:44 pm - This is what you'd call an all-star object
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| Thursday, March 20th, 2008
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9:33 pm
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I'm joining widespread content strike. This won't make much practical difference to me since I don't post often, but I suspect I may very well leave livejournal if they make it difficult for any new-found friends to join in the fun.
If their policies don't change, this party may be over; it may be time to move on.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
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9:00 pm - R.I.P. Gary Gygax
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It would be difficult to overstate his influence on my life. D&D drew me out of my isolation after I tried to kill myself in high school.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Sunday, December 23rd, 2007
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10:36 pm - Ouch
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I hereby promulgate the First Rule of Thumb: Do not zest your thumb.
Especially, do not zest your thumb with a grater covered with acidic lime zest.
This has been a public service announcement.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, July 4th, 2007
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10:18 pm - Seems appropriate today
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Constitution of the United States
Article II
Section 4 - Disqualification
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007
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9:53 pm - Woot!
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I get five whole days off in a row. They called us together at 5:15 today (The meeting was announced at 3:45, but that's typical timing.) and told us all to take Thursday and Friday off.
My manager handed me a huge dollop of egoboo at the meeting. Apparently, he says, in public, in front of my coworkers (whose opinions I generally value), everyone gets two whole extra days off because I did so well at bugstomping last week. We were scheduled to release a new version of our program today. Code freeze (after which only bug fixes are allowed) was three weeks ago. My cohort in crime and coding, K, WINAFAIKOLJ, was on vacation all last week. At the beginning of last week the bug list looked way too long to even consider releasing today, even if K had been in. We didn't even expect it to be cleared by today, and had been planning the damage control around delaying a release. By Thursday morning I'd stomped everything on the list plus two extra bugs that came in from the field, the testing crowd got hold of it, and everything worked. I spent the last two days devising new tests because I couldn't quite believe things were working. Today, we released.
I am mighty. And I get credit for it. And I get time off. I cavort.
current mood: cavorting
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, June 26th, 2007
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11:28 pm - And yet...
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This has been making the rounds in my friends' journals recently. It's all true, and yet it misses the point in so many important ways that I feel a great need to rebut.
If you're maybe noticing that you're older than you used to be, and are feeling sad/angry/confused/worried/frustrated that you haven't accomplished as much as you/other people in your present or past/annoyingly critical voices inside your head think you should have, and if you're maybe feeling something like "I'm not a real grownup like everyone else," and if you're maybe also feeling sad/angry/confused/worried/frustrated that your body isn't working the way it used to, and you're maybe thinking, "if that's true then how am I going to DO all those accomplishments that I/other people/voices in my head think I ought or want to do?", and maybe you're also wondering how are you going to dig out from under the accumulation of habit and procrastination and self-doubt to some sense of satisfaction in your life again, then post this same sentence in your journal.
When I was five, I was going to be a cowboy. When I was six, an astronaut. When I was seven, I had a "Visible Man," and wanted to be a doctor. At eight I was given a bunch of switches and lights and such for Christmas, and I knew I was going to be an "electrician;" by eight and a half, I knew the proper term was "electrical engineer." I built my own oscilloscope. When I was twelve, Popular Electronics introduced the first microcomputer, and I knew I was going to be a programmer.
By twelve, I had irrevocably failed to be a cowboy, an astronaut, a doctor, an electrical engineer, and twenty-seven other things I had known, for sure, that I wanted to be for periods ranging from an hour to a month. I have not accomplished any of those things, and never will. What a pity; I'm a good programmer. My stint as an electrical-engineer-wannabe still comes in handy even though I never "accomplished" that. Accomplishment per se is overrated; the feeling of failed accomplishment has accompanied me all my life. It's not something that's new as I grow older.
Oh, my age? I'm forty-five. And when I was thirty-two, I was going to become an animator. This year, I'm wondering if I might want to be a librarian. Or a mathematician.
"I'm not a real grownup like everyone else." Good. God. No. "Like everyone else" raises a red flag for me. I am an elitist; I won't settle for "like everyone else," and neither should you. I am revolted by the implication that being a grownup and conforming are somehow related; they are not. A grownup is sane enough to recognize how he differs from the norm and to act accordingly, making such compromises and exceptions as he requires to get along with himself and society. I occasionally envy the hypothetical average man, the social norm; he has his role all spelled out for him, and wouldn't that make life easier? But wouldn't it be boring as hell? I'm not so old that I want my life to be boring.
My body isn't working as well as it used to. This, I regret. This is the one aspect of aging that really is inescapable, as far as I can tell. I've had back surgery. I'll need reading glasses soon, though not yet, please, not yet. I can't walk ten miles on a lark anymore.
Worse yet, my taste buds are eroding, my sense of smell is going, and I can't hear the high notes as I used to. But there are compensations: I've learned. I can't taste the range I used to, but I can discriminate between tastes more finely. Just last week, I tried Glenfiddich for the first time. I didn't like it. When I was eighteen, I tried Laphroaig for the first time. I didn't like it, either. Now it's my preferred brand. Then, I didn't like something because it was weird and new. Now, I don't like something because it's run-of-the-mill, and I've had better. It's a different kind of enjoyment, one that comes with experience. I'm eagerly anticipating my first taste of forty year old port - something I haven't tried yet.
My body and mind are slowing down, so I've also learned the joys of slow. Three years ago, I was out of work. I took the opportunity to read Ulysses. I read it very slowly; I nearly read it aloud to myself. It took three months. I'd tried to read it before, when I was younger and quicker, and lost interest halfway through the second chapter after two days. I still didn't understand it, but it was a deeper misunderstanding. It made me happy.
"If that's true then how am I going to DO all those accomplishments" - Slowly. And carefully. And, if I can hack it, joyfully. I am fortunate that at heart I still enjoy programming; if I didn't, I'd have to redefine accomplishment. If I didn't, I'd drop my job in a heartbeat.
As for digging "out from under the accumulation of habit and procrastination and self-doubt" -- I'm not going to do that. I've had habit, procrastination, and self-doubt as long as I can remember; I don't think I can possibly match myself at seven for self-doubt. It was so clear that my older brother could do everything better than I possibly could. I've spent my whole life learning to continue in spite of those feelings. Aging has not made a difference.
Further, I do not need to dig myself out from anything before feeling some self-satisfaction. When I have done well, as I occasionally have, I feel some satisfaction. It is a satisfaction tempered by the realization that I might possibly have done better, but it is mine by right, and it is good. I am no longer a perfectionist, and that makes me happy in a way I couldn't have been when I was naive.
The pleasures of middle-age are different, but so far, at forty-five, they are not inferior to the pleasures of youth.
I look forward to being old. When I grow up, I want to be a wily curmudgeon.
Finally, I would note that that's a run-on sentence. I could write better than that when I was sixteen, and I still can. Nyeah.
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, May 21st, 2007
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10:56 pm - Meme that I couldn't resist
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| You are Bettie Page | 
Girl next door with a wild streak
You're a famous beauty - with unique look
And the people like you are cultish about it |
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
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9:14 pm - In downtown Manhattan
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I was out on the back fire escape at my office this afternoon. I heard the "kee kee kee" of a kestrel, and watched as a kestrel and a peregrine falcon duked it out over territory. The falcon is a neighborhood regular that I've seen before. The kestrel was smaller than the peregrine; the peregrine was quieter than the kestrel. The flew up at each other a couple of times, and the peregrine told the kestrel just where he could go (Away.). The kestrel went East, out over Long Island.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, February 28th, 2007
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9:51 pm - Nail it to the wall and paint it green?
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For the record, if you can get ahold of fresh herring, homemade pickled herring is dead easy and much, much tastier than the stuff you get in jars.
current mood: well-fed
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(comment on this)
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