blogwaffe

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!

Today’s IAU vote reduced the solar system’s planet count to eight. No, Pluto has not been forcibly removed from orbit for bad behavior, it has merely been demoted; Pluto has been designated a “dwarf planet” since it fails to meet the newly defined criteria for planetary status.

A “planet” is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

It is the third test that Pluto fails; it has not “cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit” (whatever that means) since its orbit and Neptune’s overlap.

Fair enough. Too bad, Pluto.

But just as Pluto’s and Neptune’s respective orbits overlap, so too do Neptune’s and Pluto’s. Neptune, then, has not “cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit” either.

Perhaps I’m missing something in the highly rigorous definitions of “to clear” and “neighbourhood”, but it seems the new rules have been inconsistently applied to yield an ‘eight planet system’.

I should also point out that the new definitions do nothing to define the status of bodies orbiting other stars since all of the language used refers to “the sun” and “the solar system”. Are the IAU resolutions science, then, or just self-important verbiage?

I hope my confusion comes only from my ignorance and that there’s a good answer to all of this.

I had a debate with Michelle the other day that started with me making the statement above. My argument was that artists are going to spend a long time composing and brooding over a work of sadness because they have nothing better to do; they’re sad. A happy song, however, will be written quickly; the artist has better things to be getting on with.

Now, I know there will be many who disagree with this assessment (or the conclusion), so allow me to seal the deal by offering up a concrete example grounded in objectivity that will surely convince even the most fervorous of dissenters: Elliott Smith v. The Village People.

As long as nobody brings up Belle and Sebastian, I think we’ve got that all settled.

Depending on whether or not someone else grabs it first, I may have an extra ticket for the Death Can for Cutie and Spoon concert tonight at the Greek Theatre.

Get in touch with… Greg or Ellen or Paul.za if you want it (or me by phone); I’m at the beach today.

Michelle and I drove down a portion of the Pacific Coast Highway after our WordCamp inspired trip to the bay area. (I should note that the section of Highway 1 we were on is not officially called the Pacific Coast Highway according to the hard to parse California State Route 1 wikipedia entry.)
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I’m in San Francisco at the moment here at the WordCamp convention. So far I’ve learned how to “write a compelling blog” (please, have you been to blogwaffe before?).

More to the point, I finally got to meet Podz and Matt.

For all the readers at home, you can check out the wordcamp flickr photostream.

Update 08.07.2006:

After lunch I went to talks about WordPress MU, server optimization and a really good one on microformats. I also met Ryan, Mark, Andy, and Donncha.

The day was made all the sweeter by the bumping afterparty. By the way, Ryan, your penalty for not attending the postWordCamp bash is to recommend to me a favorite beer of yours.

Jeff and Ariele inviteg Greg and me to a Last Comic Standing taping this afternoon at the Pasadena Civic Center.

It airs tonight at 9 (8 central).

Apparently you can see me several times during the show, so watch it and admire my too hot visage.

I recently had occasion to call the Pasadena Police Department. Lacking their number, I dialed 911 from my cell phone hoping they would transfer me over without tying up emergency lines.

Instead, I was greeted with the following (potentially misremembered) message.

You have reached 911 emergency services. If this is an emergency, press 1 or say “one” now.

This was repeated in Spanish then English then Spanish before the other end hung up.

I’ve accidentally pocket dialed 911 before (even when the buttons are locked on most non-flip phones, you can still dial 911), and I wonder if this message has been put into use because 911 operators are being inundated with such unintentional calls.

Among the many possibilities, I mention three.

1. All calls are greeted with this message.
2. All calls originating from cell phones are greeted with this message.
3. All calls originating from cell phones that have previously called in false alarms are greeted with this message.

Anyone know the real deal?

At any rate, the problem is an interesting one. How do you filter out unintentional calls that bog down the emergency response system? Either of the last two possibilities above seem reasonable. I’d rule out the first since the number of unintentional emergency calls from land lines must be minuscule. Additionally, I’d suggest recording the call no matter what so that if someone just starts screaming into the phone, the operator won’t miss anything.

Of course, it’d be best if people were aware of this “feature”. If, in order to get help in the event of an emergency, a person needs to dial 9111 (hmmm… war of escalation) when using a cell phone, I’d like some well publicized announcements.