Paparazzi all over me

I never even took my camera out of my bag, yet I somehow I have over 700 photos and growing of the YAPC::NA 2008 conference.

Amazing. :)

Gusty flying

Ryan invited me to check out his planes, so I packed my pair of hounds and he flew two of his electric Styrofoam planes briefly in gusty 8am winds. We then checked out the Western Flyers R/C field. Very cool. Heading back again a week from Tuesday to check it out when there's a bunch of people.

Doggie Ghost in the Machine

Sammie passed away a few months ago, but you can still see him in Google Street View.

Poker, YAPC::NA 2008 in Chicago

We've had 2 poker nights in a row. A good time was had by all. :)

My lightning talk for Yet Another Perl Conference in Chicago next week was approved. So now I just need to write up a talk and fill 5 minutes without fainting. :)

Google Street View

Well, we're official. Our house is visible in Google Street View now. No, they didn't drive right past our house for some reason, but you can see it, dead ahead, on the north end of 162nd street.

Crazy kids and their toys...

(This is all funded by business advertising revenue and real estate agents, right?)

Heck, while you're at it, check out: my parents house, the med center DRC tower from the north and south (see the construction cranes in the background?); ConAgra; the Omni Hotels reservation center (you can barely see it), corporate office and Dallas Mandalay; the Luxor casino...

waskely wabbit

Perhaps someday I'll stop ssh hopping for a living and get a clue. #poe tried to help me today: 1, 2, 3, 4 (<@perigrin> on a mac look for SSHKeychain).

Amateur game addict

I'm haven't dumped dozens of hours into a game in years, but I just blew ~10 hours and lots of sleep on this one: Desktop Tower Defense. Super addicting, and waaay too easy to get started. :) After a hundred attempts I finally beat hard mode tonight, with a score of 6589 and only 4 lives lost. Phew! Now I never have to play this game again!

I wrote the CLAB well converter today. It's pretty cool. :)

I presented the ChemChains sandbox at the Omaha Dynamic Language Users Group on Tuesday. What could possibly be more fun than boolean networks?

FIRE THEM!

So I'm walking to work, listening to the NPR Podcast Spies For Hire with author Tim Shorrock... Did I hear this correctly?

70% of our intelligence spending is outsourced? Ok. And people often leave government agencies to work for private firms, and then end up back in the same agency. But now they're a contractor and getting paid 2 - 3 times their former salary... But the nice thing about having contractors doing government work is that if they have a drinking problem you fire them. With a "lifetime employee" it's not that easy...

So, let me get this straight. 70% of my tax money is being spent on contractors. Who are often the same people doing the same job but I'm paying them 2 - 3 times as much money? And the benefit I am getting with all that extra cash is that no one has to fire an unproductive government worker? Who, what, thinks they're entitled to a lifetime of employment with or without productivity?

I've got an idea -- FIRE THE BASTARDS. We've become so hamstrung by our own human resources hand-holding and team-building bullshit that we're spending 70% of our budget over-paying for the same work to get done by the same people? 70% of $60B being paid 2 times as much is $21B a year wasted because we don't want to get rid of people that don't perform?

Ok, I just massively oversimplified a complex problem. But 70% of our budget on contractors?! For reasons anywhere close to that one? Really? Are we that stupid?

Yee gods.