Fluorescent Dreams Wax Cylinders

JOB OFFER: LOCKSS

2009-12-18T21:57:06Z

Dear all,
The company that I'm working for has a job opening for a good software engineer.

LOCKSS does digital preservation by distributing copies of articles in libraries around the world. This is a good team, with very dedicated programmers. If you want an unbiased idea of how wonderful this place is, write to tilton, who left about two years ago.

Here's the job description:

LOCKSS Program Software Developer

Job ID

36723

Job Location

University Libraries

Job Category

Information Technology Services

Date Posted

Dec 12, 2009

This position is a two-year fixed-term.

The LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) Program, founded in 1998 at Stanford University, is an international community initiative working to preserve today’s valuable web content for future readers and scholars. We work with approximately 200 libraries and 400 publishers, from all corners of the globe. The ACM award-winning LOCKSS technology is open source, peer-to-peer, decentralized digital preservation infrastructure [www.lockss.org] based on Java and Unix.

We are looking for an exceptional software engineer.

Responsibilities: The person we hire will share responsibilities to design, develop, and deploy the LOCKSS Program software. She/he will work with a small team to:
• Develop, build, and implement major portions of the LOCKSS system
• Participate in weekly design meetings, code specifications, and code reviews.
• Implement design choices working alone or in a small group to deliver solid code in a timely manner, using a structured unit-testing framework.
• Understand trends: World Wide Web, data communication (peer to peer protocols), digital libraries and electronic journals.
• Analyze a diverse range of online publishing formats to enable content preservation
• Contribute to providing support to an international group of publishers, systems administrators and librarians who are using the LOCKSS preservation system.

Description of the Relationships and Roles: The incumbent will report to the Director and, LOCKSS Program, Stanford University Libraries/Academic Information Resources (SUL/AIR). She or he will work closely with the LOCKSS Program Senior Software Architect and the LOCKSS Chief Scientist. The Developer will be located in the LOCKSS Program offices at 1450 Page Mill Road, Palo Alto.

Equipment, Systems, software, skills to be used in the performance of the job:

Software and Systems:
• Java: Java Servlets, JUnit, Java thread programming, Java networking
• Unix and Linux shell scripting
• Emacs, Eclipse, JBuilder or some other Linux compatible IDE
• XML technologies

Skills:
• Ability to design, implement, test and deploy complex Web-based systems
• Ability to work independently and as part of a small team with minimal supervision

Qualifications:
A four year college degree or equivalent is required, and an advanced degree in Computer Science is desired. At least three years of programming experience with Java is required.

• Experience with:
o Java: Java Servlets, JUnit, Java thread programming, Java networking, AWT/Swing, Castor, XStream, PDFBox
o Development Tools: Eclipse/NetBeans, JUnit, Ant, CruiseControl
o Collaboration Tools : Subversion/CVS/RCS, Bugzilla/RT/Trac/Roundup, MediaWiki/MoinMoin, SourceForge
o Knowledge of C, C++, C# is a plus
o Knowledge of Ruby/Rails, SQL, Python, Perl is a plus
• Demonstrated ability to deliver projects on time and as specified
• Record of inquisitiveness, curiosity; a quick learner of new technologies and tools
• Ability to apply knowledge, ingenuity and logical thinking to solve systems and program design problems, within time and resource constraints
• Ability to work independently and in a collaborative production team environment where tasks are often shared and success is based on the effective delivery of systems and services
• Excellent oral and written communication skills; experience providing user support and writing documentation a plus

If you're interested, visit jobs.stanford.edu and do a keyword search for "LOCKSS". The Job Title is "LOCKSS Program Software Developer", and the Job ID is 36723.

Take care, all!

Repost from vito_excalibur: Feminism Fail...

2009-12-15T03:45:41Z

Why James Chartrand Wears Women' Underpants
He Must Be Joking

I'm clueless about feminism.

So I won't comment further on those articles.

Congratulations to Kyell Gold!

2009-12-13T04:15:10Z

Kyell Gold won awards for his book "Out Of Position"!

Yaaaay! Congratulations to the great writer!

For my Jewish readers...

2009-12-12T07:34:12Z

CHappy CHanukah!

2009 Music CDs: reminder

2009-12-11T18:13:35Z

Just a reminder...

This weekend, I will be making and sending out compilation CDs of music that was new to me this year. The CD has about six hours of music; no artist or album has more than one song on this CD. It includes a broad range of musical styles and languages.

The only cost for the CD is this: If you like any of the songs, please seek out that artist and support him or her.

If you want one, give me your snail mail address in this entry (your response is screened.) I've turned off comments on this entry: leave your comment there.

Take care, all!

Maceió: Brazilian Steakhouse

2009-12-06T19:34:41Z

For Eli's birthday, I splurged, and I took her to Maceió. It's a new Brazilian steakhouse in downtown San Jose.

This restaurant is all-you-can-eat. When you sit down, they bring a small selection of appetizers (fried cheese, fried plantain, and fried potato strip), suggest a trip to the salad bar. The salad bar is good, with about twenty items to choose from. I recommend white rice (with or without beans) for your plate, to catch meat drippings.

They show you a piece of wood in the shape of an hourglass: red on one side, green on the other. As long as the hourglass has green on top, a stream of waiters will (slowly) bring different cuts of meat to your table...

Top sirloin, tri-tip, short ribs, rib eye steak, flank steak, lamb, pork ribs, turkey breast, sausage, and chicken came to our table. I wanted to try a little of everything.

All of the meats were 'juicy' and had lots of fat. The best meats were their turkey and those from cows: rich, cooked medium-well, and very simple. The only seasonings they used for most meats were salt and pepper, but that was enough.

If you go, dress well. Eli and I were "dressed down", and we tended to get the last bits of meat from the skewers. However, the waiters were friendly and accommodating. I can't complain: after the meal, when Eli and I rolled out of the restaurant, we both felt as if we had eaten a whole cow each.

Dinner is $45 per person.

Maceio
72 South First Street
San Jose, CA 95113
(408) 293-1215

2009 Music CDs

2009-12-01T17:08:34Z

Dear all,

It's that time of year again... time to pass out the best music I found in 2009.

3catsjackson started this wonderful annual tradition.

I've collected about 70 of the best songs that were new to me this year. (The songs themselves were recorded between 1940 and 2009.) The musical genres include alternative, Arabic, classical, electronica, jazz, Latin, metal, prog rock, rock, world, and... *blink* ... Esperanto.

As always, this CD contains no more than one song from any band, and no more than one song from any album. I hope that, listening to this disk, you seek out and buy albums from the groups that you like. (Please support your favorite artists! Times are tough.)

If you want a copy, leave me a note (below) with your mailing address. All comments are screened.

Take care, all!

Understanding the Bay Area...

2009-11-27T21:14:10Z

I just realized that my previous post might not make sense to people outside the Bay Area. Here's an oversimplified and very biased explanation of different areas of the Bay:

Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is roughly the area from San Jose north to Menlo Park, California. It's the high-tech area that creates jobs for half of the Bay Area.[*]

San Francisco
San Francisco is the entertainment area for the Bay Area. It has some high-tech, some banking, and other jobs for the other half of the Bay Area.

The Peninsula
The area between Silicon Valley and San Francisco is the Peninsula: mostly places for wealthier people to live.

The East Bay
The East Bay is where people who can't afford to live on the Peninsula live.[**] The northern parts tend to serve San Francisco; the southern parts tend to serve Silicon Valley. Since Silicon Valley grabs people from all around the Pacific, the southern parts get restaurants that match its people: less expensive, global comfort food.

Now, I look forward to other Bay Area denizens correcting my over-simplifications...

[*] To give an idea of how oversimplified this description is, that area includes East Palo Alto, a poorer residential area.
[**] This description is extremely oversimplified. The East Bay includes Berkeley and Fremont-Union City-Newark, which are both quite comfortable.

Turkey Masala...

2009-11-27T19:21:21Z

The East Bay, California is not (yet) known for its food. That's a shame; Silicon Valley brought people from around the world here, and their food came here too.

The East Bay has few high-class restaurants. There might be one or two of them, well-hidden. On the other hand, it has an embarrassing richness of comfort food restaurants -- Japanese ramen shops, Mexican taqerías, South Indian chaats, and Vietnamese pho.

One popular restaurant in the East Bay is Bombay Garden. It's popular for three reasons:

- It has a very large buffet with dozens of North Indian foods -- both vegetarian and with meat.
- They play sexy, modern Bollywood videos on very large screens.
- They have a large area with excellent sound for private parties.

For Thanksgiving, Eli and I enjoyed the Thanksgiving-themed buffet (the featured dish was Turkey Masala) and their videos. But then I heard drumming outside our part of the restaurant.

I wandered out, to see a pair of drummers leading Indian ladies dancing and dressed in more colors than a fursuit parade. Behind the ladies were Sikh men dressed in business suits, not dancing quite as much. Inside the private area, the drummers were joined by a female singer, two reed instruments, and a synthesizer. Wonderful, loud music filled the air. I chatted briefly with two of the party goers; I'm sorry that I couldn't join the congratulations to the new husband.

Great food, and the surprise of live music, made this a fantastic -- if unorthodox -- Thanksgiving.

Take care, all!

What am I thankful for?

2009-11-26T21:12:24Z

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I'm deeply thankful for:

- My wife, Elizabeth. She is a blessing in my life. She has accomplished much -- this year, she graduated with her J.D. -- and she will accomplish much, much more.
- My job. In these times of 10% unemployment, any job is good, but I am very lucky. My work will preserve electronic texts long after the death of their publishers.
- polymathwannabe and _counterculture. The bestest boyfriend and girlfriend in the world!
- Having a brain that's (over) full of ideas. And a book to put most of them into. (I've restarted my textbook about statistics for programmers.)
- All you you readers!

Have a great Thankgiving. Stuff yourself full of good food. Live, love, and enjoy!

Take care, all.

Sad news.

2009-11-21T22:33:38Z

She didn't pass.

No, I'm not explaining more. Comments are turned off.

One Rat Short

2009-11-09T06:10:07Z

Ten minutes long. A beautiful story.

One Rat Short from atach on Vimeo.

FYI: hackers.org was hacked...

2009-11-03T06:43:26Z

Dear all,

A long while ago, I mentioned the website "hackers.org"; despite its name, it was dedicated to programming puzzles.

Today, I discovered that it itself had been hacked; all usernames and passwords on the site have been released.

(I used my 'I don't care about security' password and my "spam me please" email on that system. Thank heavens.)

If you followed my link to that website, and if you created an account on that system, then you might want to change passwords on other systems. That cat is out of the bag.

Grumble.

-- Chip

Girl by D. C. Simpson...

2009-10-29T22:48:19Z

D. C. Simpson is trying for Comic Strip Superstar with a comic called Girl.

I'm too cynical. I read the sample comics, and I remember the jokes when she originally drew them in Ozy and Millie.

Good luck, Dana!

Are newspapers really doomed?

2009-10-27T00:03:50Z

I just noticed something:

Average number of readers for the twenty-fifth largest newspaper, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times: 240,147 weekday, 370,050 Sunday. These are physical copies of the newspaper, not website visits. (Source)

Average number of viewers for CNN: 202,000. (Source)

If that's unfair -- if you want to compare the largest against the largest...

Number of viewers for the most popular program on any news channel: Bill O'Reilly on Fox News: 881,000. (Same source)

Average number of readers for the Wall Street Journal: 2,024,269. (Same source)

I'm not saying that the newspaper business isn't having problems. It is. I am saying that newspapers have much more power than common wisdom currently thinks.

What do you think? Take care, all.

SteamCon 2009: Five photos

2009-10-26T03:08:58Z

Here's five photos from this year's SteamCon. As usual, click on them to get more detail. Enjoy!

	Queens of the air
	Robert and Daniel from Abney Park
	Back... to the future!
	No, I did not turn into stone.
	This isn't your father's fashion show. It's your grandfather's.

Happy birthday to me!

2009-10-21T05:52:04Z

As a birthday gift, I'm traveling to Seattle for a week. (Yaaaaaaay!)

As usual, every year, I'm selfish, and I ask for presents. But I'm not expensive...

I need more happiness and joy in my life. So, this year, I ask you:

What has given you the most happiness and/or joy over the past year?

*smile*

Take care, all.

emoburd is evil, evil, evil!

2009-10-17T21:05:56Z

I want to report to the whole world that emoburd is evil, evil, evil! I told him a deep, dark, horrible secret about myself, and he... broadcast it to the world!

Though Emoburd has started a funny comic (Funniest are Emu Comix #4, #8, and #15), he can't be trusted with your secrets.

If he tries to sell you a ticket to Burning Bird Art Festival, don't buy one! Unless he drops the price below $400.

Take care, all.

Family Guy...

2009-10-15T04:28:26Z

Brian: You know, it's really nice to get out of the house and to walk along the beach. The fresh air, the sound of the ocean...
Peter: Oooooh! Lookie! I think it washed up! *runs to something grey on the beach*
Brian: Don't touch it, Peter. You don't know what it is, or what it has....
Peter: Brian, I'm poking it with a stick! See? (In a sing-song voice) Poking, poking, poking...
Brian: Peter! It might be alive.
Peter: *heh*heh*heh* You're just a scardie Brian. See me poke it with my finger. (In the same sing-song voice) Poking, poking, poking...
Brian: (Hesitantly) I'm no ichthyologist, but that looks like a shark to me...
Peter: Brian, lookit me! I put my whole hand on it!
Brian: I wouldn't do that, Peter...
Peter: Watch me, Brian! I can leap over the shark. Wouldn't that be cool? I'll bet the Fonz was never that cool. *steps back three paces to make a running start*
Brian: Actually....
Peter: Loookit meeeeee!

And thus did Family Guy officially and undeniably jump the shark.

EXPLANATION: If you don't want to click the links at the bottom of the entry, Family Guy is doing a half-hour special, sponsored by Microsoft, about Windows 7.

Happy Coming Out Day!

2009-10-12T00:34:37Z

That's me, above "U". In a Shanghai newspaper.

Nobel Peace Prize...

2009-10-09T15:10:01Z

The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to President Barack Obama.

I'm going to agree with the Freakonomics blog: Congratulations, but it's too early.

What do you think?

World music is sounding a little familiar...

2009-10-09T01:51:53Z

I love world music.

And sometimes, world music gives me... a big shock.

Wasta Pyar Da, by Atif Aslam (If your work allows soundstage music videos, it's very safe.)

(The series is a great mixture of Pakistani music and Western music. All the songs in the series are available for download.)

Seattle: October 21-27

2009-10-05T16:50:01Z

Dear all,
I will be in the Seattle area from October 21 through October 27.

If you're in the Seattle area, and you'd like to get together with me, here are my plans:

October 21: Arrive around 2:30pm. Otherwise, I'm available to meet people!
October 22: Drive to Bellingham (IIRC) for a wedding. Available in the evening.
October 23: Drive back from Bellingham. Opening night for SteamCon, but I should be available in the evening.
October 24: SteamCon's main day. I will be at the Abney Park Concert that evening.
October 25: SteamCon's final day. I should be available.
October 26: Available most of the day.
October 27: Leave Seattle at noon.

Take care, all!

From the Castro Street Fair this weekend...

2009-10-05T05:10:37Z

This weekend was impossibly busy: I went to the Castro Street Fair.

As usual, click on the photos for much higher resolution.

	I think he wanted me to be the next one married...
	One of these people is not like the others...
	It's a HAPPY penis!
	The family that yogas together, stays together.
	Because normal cross-dressing is so last week.
	Fans of Dr. Seuss!
	Cheerleaders!
	He took a pie in the face for gay marriage. I don't understand it, either.
	Three members of Smash Up Derby, a loud punk-80s-mashup band.
	Three members of Wonderbread 5, as tongue-in-cheek as they come.

Because there's not enough giraffes in the world...

2009-10-03T03:25:33Z

One Million Giraffes

Make a giraffe, but not on a computer.

Only 694,458 giraffes to go.

UPDATE: My giraffe I am not an artist.