blogwaffe

I would have guessed the bottle would have shattered, but the cap seems to act as a safety valve.

Beer slushy anyone?

Live from Mexico

Barry organized a Wii tennis tournament for us here at Lapazomattic which Matt won in an exciting but ill-gotten victory :) Three quarters of the way into the bracket, Matt decided the wiinner would earn the honor of having everyone else ping him.

So here I am. photomatt wiins tennis.

That’s ok, though; his regex isn’t so good.

Having the excuse of a Wedding to attend in Mobile, michelle and I decided to make a trip out of it and see some things this Idaho Yank had never seen (”Idaho Yank” seems to me to be something of an anachronism since Idaho was admitted to the Union many years after the end of the War of Northern Aggression. Besides, the Mason-Dixon line doesn’t extend nearly that far West geographically or, arguably, culturally. But whatever.).

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Old timers of this site will recall that I own a 1998 Saturn SL1. As most people know, Saturns have daytime running lights in between the main headlights (earning the cars the nickname of “cyclops” to some).

At dusk, I have often left my headlights off judging the remains of the daylight still bright enough for the running lights to do their job. I will no longer do so.

I have found from first hand experience that a Saturn with only its running lights on looks farther away than it really is under certain lighting conditions. This is because the lights are spaced more closely together than are typical headlights.

So, Saturn drivers, turn your headlights on when it gets even a little dark out. You may be right in thinking that other drivers can see your running lights, but that may be all they can see.

Some people really like that WordPress sends pings from your own site to your own site when you write posts; it lets them easily leave a trail of related posts.

Some people do not like this behavior; it clutters up their comments.

So here’s a plugin to disable self pinging. I couldn’t find any prior art, but if you know of any other plugins that do this, please let me know.

Download the plugin, put it in your WordPress plugins directory, activate it via your WordPress admin panel, and you’re set. No configuration necessary.

As of September 1st, I have taken a leave of absence from Caltech. Actually, they technically call it a sabbatical; I’m totally on sabbatical.

As of September 4th, I am an Automattic “Engineer” (though I sometimes call myself “Consul General of Los Angeles” when I think no one can hear me).

I know what you’re all thinking (”Wait, he’s working at home now? Where will MDA go when he’s slacking off…?”). Allow me to respond to your aggregate thoughts by means of a friendly question and answer section.

What’s Automattic and why can’t it spell?

It’s a company devoted to making things simple on the web. Everyone communicates in some form or another; we want to give people the tools to make that communication easy. We can’t spell because we all grew up with spellcheck making our communication easy.

Hang on, didn’t you start life out as an Engineer?

Yes: Chemical Engineer -> Chemist -> Physicist -> Complexity Theorist -> Engineer (if I may play fast and loose with the labels). I find the whole cyclic nature of that chain a bit disturbing.

What about Caltech? Grad school not your thing?

Grad school is awesome. Yes, things have been a little slow lately, but I still think it’s all very interesting. Maybe this is even better, though. Besides, now I can say I was part of the web when it was still 2.0. (Plus, I wasn’t slated to graduate until 2017, anyway.)

So if you’re not working on amplifying QMA(k) anymore, what will you be doing?

A list parties. Casual disregard for social mores. First class flights from LAX to ONT. You know, typical engineering stuff.

A list parties?

OK, so I’ll be working on bbPress and other Automattic projects. But I will be cultivating a casual disregard for the term “Web 2.0″, if that helps.

Sounds like you’re excited. You do realize this all sounds very 1990’s.

You bet I’m excited. Good People. Good Products. It’s going to be a great year. And, hey, no 90’s bashing. Those were the formative days of my youth!