Blog@Case Topics: and now for something differenthttp://blog.case.edu/topics/and%20now%20for%20something%20differentJeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith2008-02-22T21:43:05ZAsimov's Short on Intelligencehttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2008/01/27/asimovs_short_on_intelligence2008-01-27T21:29:07Z2008-02-22T21:43:05Z

"What is Intelligence?" - Isaac Asimov

Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart.

Funny.

Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithWarm January Days in Clevelandhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2008/01/08/warm_january_days_in_cleveland2008-01-08T23:13:41Z2008-01-23T23:58:38Z
Yesterday and today, the weather in Cleveland hit the 60s. I celebrated the occasion by taking a spin around town with the top down. Miata in Absurdly Warm Cleveland January Day == Top Down! The funny thing is (and I've had to describe this to multiple people) is that every January in Cleveland has 1 or 2 days where it gets into the 60s. January 5, 2007: 60° January 13, 2006: 61° January 13, 2005: 73° January 3, 2004: 62° The bad news… don't expect it to go over 60 again until late April.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithName the Three "Coolest" Brands You Can Think of Right Nowhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2007/12/07/name_the_three_coolest_brands_you_can_think_of_right_now2007-12-07T08:11:07Z2008-01-23T23:58:39Z
  1. Apple
  2. Google
  3. Nintendo
"Cool" (in the title) is quotation-isized because (obviously) it is a subjective measure. Please substitute in your own definition of it without explanation (as I have done). Thank you.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithOn Vacation Until Monday, May 7thhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2007/04/20/vacation2007-04-21T00:05:31Z2007-04-21T00:05:32Z
When I leave work today, I'm officially starting two weeks of vacation. So if you need something from me, email me soon! I'll be in Raleigh, NC; and very unreachable by ordinary methods. Please don't break anything while I'm gone... Thanks!
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithMedia Consumptionhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2007/04/11/media_consumption2007-04-12T01:01:23Z2007-04-12T01:11:19Z

I've been tagged, and my blogging has fallen off, recently, so I thought I would participate.

In retribution, I tag Andy Wismar, Chris Prall, Jason Frakes, Sam Harmon, and Steve Kemler.

Email

Email is my preferred form of communication because it allows me to queue items. And I don't have to remember items if they are in my email because it's searchable. Leave me a voicemail or tell me something; there are good odds it will go unnoticed. Email me about it — much better.

I'm a voracious consumer of email lists. I'm on a dozen or so Case mailing lists. Through GMail, I am subscribed to several high volume lists like the Miata Mailing List, Atom syntax, AtomPP, rss-public, rest-discuss, Google Apps APIs, and a couple more here and there.

I use a lot of filters to manage my email. At any given point in time, you can ask me how many messages are in any of my three inboxs, and I will know because the answer will be zero (okay, maybe one or two that I haven't seen and filed yet that just got sent directly to me while you were asking me the question).

I use Thunderbird (IMAP), GMail, and Google Apps for Your Domain (essentially GMail) as my email clients.

Web

Everything comes into Bloglines, which I read in Firefox either on my Mac or on my Ubuntu desktop.

Music

Back in college, I used to have a taste in music. I listened to punk bands. Bands like Avail, Boy Sets Fire, Converge, ...

Nowadays, I just listen to the same music my girlfriend listens to — Ben Folds, Top 20. It's background noise.

When I do have the sudden urge to listen to music music, I find myself drawn into listening to my Father's music — Stevie Ray Vaughan, Allman Brothers, some John Lee Hooker.

TV

In descending order of importance:

  1. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
  2. There is no #2

Battlestar Galactica and House would have made the list if they hadn't started getting so bad in their current seasons. Those episodes mostly just rot on the TiVo until I get around to deleting them.

If it's 9 o'clock on a Sunday, and I'm not doing anything (or I'm at my girlfriend's), I'll watch Family Guy. Random 24 hour news channels sometimes play in the background while I'm at the computer...

Really, though, it's just The Daily Show.

Communication

I blog here and on my personal blog. I use Twitter. I exchange SMSes and IMs with my friends. WiFi at home. WiFi at work. WiFi pretty much everywhere.

Movies

I don't do movies. I did go see 300 because it was about the friggin' Battle of Thermopylae. How can you not go see that.

Outside of that, I can't remember the last time I wanted to go see a movie in the theaters. I believe I only go when my girlfriend wants to.

Newspapers

They still make those?

Magazines

They still make those?

Books

They still make those?

 

Okay, just kidding.

I do get one magazine — Grassroots Motorsports.

I used to be an avid reader of fiction. But like most males who hit 20, I stopped reading it. From A tale of two genders: men choose novels of alienation, while women go for passion:

On the whole, men between the ages of 20 and 50 do not read fiction.

So, I guess, check back in with me in 22 years. The last fiction book I remember reading was a year to a year-and-a-half ago — Flaubert's Parrot. I do remember that, while reading it, thinking that the activity was a waste of time.

I do have proof that I once was an avid reader of fiction — my bookshelf:

Bookshelf

The only books I read are non-fiction — O'Reilly books, books like The Rise of the Creative Class and Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science. Non-fiction.

Radio

NPR. My favorite programs are Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal and, of course, Car Talk.

Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithTo All the Other Jeremy Smiths Out Therehttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2007/03/21/to_all_the_other_jeremy_smiths_out_there2007-03-21T21:29:41Z2007-03-21T21:31:06Z
Finding your Google twin can be a strange obsession To all of the other "Jeremy Smiths" out there, I'm #1. That makes me " The Jeremy Smith" and you guys " The other Jeremy Smiths." ;-) I wonder how many angry "Jeremy Smith" commenters are going to show up.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithSlip 'n' Slide in KSLhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2007/02/13/slip_n_slide_in_ksl2007-02-13T06:31:59Z2007-02-13T06:34:55Z
Slip 'n' Slide in the Kelvin Smith Library
In the Spring 2004 a number of Case Western Reserve University students staged a prank in the university's Kelvin Smith Library using a Slip 'n' Slide and lots of dish washing liquid. The video documents the planning and execution of the event in the main reading room of the library late one evening.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithNight Owlshttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2006/12/12/night_owls2006-12-12T08:16:54Z2006-12-12T08:21:12Z
Night Owls Are More Creative, Says Study Being a "Night Owl" myself, I had a long rant involving personal experience to accompany this link. But I have a long to-blog queue already, so you get just the link. I do think that "living 2 to 3 hours offset" (as the study put it) does give you more "alone time." And "alone time" to me equals time to concentrate and time to explore "the edges." YMMV.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithLinkedInhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2006/08/30/linkedin2006-08-30T19:30:34Z2006-08-30T19:32:43Z
I've succumbed to peer pressure and have acquired a LinkedIn profile. It's located at http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremymsmith. Obviously, the first thing one must do with any kind of social site of this nature is to make sure the size of their LinkedIn "karma" is sufficiently large. So I've been looking around for everybody I know so I can ask them to be my LinkedIn Pal®. But the search mechanism doesn't show you names of persons. This made no sense to me until I saw that they wanted you to pony up some cash to see persons' names. Then it made sense. So anyways, if I know you and you've already gone to the pains of creating a LinkedIn profile... connect! I am very suspect of any utility of these services. I have no idea what I would use it for or what others would use it for, but I'll give it a try and see if I can glean anything from it.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithI'm Doing It!http://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2006/07/21/im_doing_it2006-07-21T19:23:59Z2006-07-21T19:56:44Z
Just helping to take back Planet Case. You may have seen the announcement about spammers and trackback. Our increasingly complex anti-spam setup really deserves a blog entry to describe it. It's getting surreal. I, also, promised to do an entry on my switch from Windows to Apple. Maybe I'll do that entry today. Have you seen that Apple blog? He really did a great job on the templates. Also, did you see Greg's post on 5 Things You Probably Didn't Know About PHP? Everybody and their brother linked to that thing.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithOn Vacationhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2006/06/23/on_vacation2006-06-24T00:29:03Z2006-06-24T00:28:52Z
I'm officially on vacation until Wednesday, July 5th. Have a good 4th of July, everybody.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithTop 5 Most Annoying Tendencies of "Other Drivers"http://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2006/05/10/annoying_tendencies_of_other_drivers2006-05-10T18:53:31Z2006-05-10T18:55:43Z

Inspired by Mano Singham's post Driving etiquette, I thought I would take this opportunity to blog about driving.

You see, I am what is known as a human being. As such, I have fulfilled all known requirements for being able to declare myself an excellent driver.

As We " excellent drivers" tend to do, I would like to use my position of meritocratic authority to complain about the tendencies of what ( We refer to as) the dreaded other drivers — those people that have the audacity to drive on Our roads using vehicles similiar to Our own but causing Us to have to adjust Our driving to their presence (I swear to God, the nerve of some people).

  • Inconsistent Speed — Highway speed variations that seem to have no connection to the conditions of traffic or the road. People can range anywhere from 55 to 75mph. You're driving behind them at the nominal clip of 67mph when, suddenly, their speed drops to 59mph. You move to pass them, but they have (for no reason) increased their speed from 59 to now 71. You drop back behind them as they are now moving faster than your planted speed. They decelerate again. You move to pass. They accelerate. (This episode plays out indefinitely). There's a variation of this called the "I Just Want to Go Faster than You" driver. He sets his speed to be 1-2mph above whoever is directly in front of him. Passes them. Then slows down to whatever speed he is comfortable causing the person he just passed to have to pass him back causing him to go 1-2mph above whoever is directly in front of him causing him to pass that driver before settling into his slower more comfortable speed causing the other driver...

  • Not Using Turn Signals — This one is especially poignant when done by a person in a car sporting the bumber sticker "Forget world peace; visualize using your turn signal."

  • Using the Passing Lane for Cruising — Irony steps in when a person guilty of doing this approaches another driver and begins tailgating and becoming irate at them for doing the same thing.

  • Hitting the Brakes for No Reason — There you are, cruisin' as one does, not tailgating or anything, and the driver in front of you stabs the brakes. You follow likewise and begin scanning the roadside in front of the other driver. Nothing was there. Nothing is there. You wonder what the Hell just happened. You see that the driver in front of you is picking up his or her cell phone and putting it to their ear. "Ahh, I see," you think to yourself. "The appropriate response to the cell phone ringing is to first jam your brakes then answer it.

  • Drivers Who Don't Merge at Speed — (This one was going to be "People Talking on Their Cell Phone While Driving," but it's so cliché to include that on lists of driving annoyances... it's just understood to be on all drivers' lists.) We've all been there; on an entrance ramp right behind the person who attempts to merge onto the 65mph highway at 20mph causing you to have to merge at 20mph and soliciting many honks.

Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithTesthttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2006/04/18/test2006-04-18T20:18:00Z2006-04-18T20:23:01Z
Testing scheduled posts.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith27http://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2006/04/05/272006-04-05T19:37:19Z2006-04-05T19:38:12Z
27 As of today, the integer that is assigned to the number of years I've been kicking up dirt on this here planet of ours. What is precisely the cut-off age for being able to attribute the stupid stuff one does to "youthful indiscretions?"
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithThey Should Have Bloggedhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2006/03/17/they_should_have_blogged2006-03-17T19:03:03Z2006-03-17T19:03:08Z
The news that President Hundert resigned came as a shock to most people, myself included. I don't think many thought that the vote of no confidence would be the catalyst that would lead to the waterfall of current events. Many of the people and places reporting on the events describe the complaints by the faculty and others regarding President Hundert and the administration, and one of the complaints I consistently see is "lack of communication" or "secrecy of the administration." That is, they didn't seem approachable or didn't approach others with their plans and the implementations of their plans. Now, I don't mean to pimp the blog system (at least not so blatantly without putting a quiet disclaimer like this that I am indeed "pimping the blog system"). But if they would have had a blog where they did weekly postings concerning the Master Plan, the implementation of the Master Plan, day-to-day troubles with the Master Plan, day-to-day (or week-to-week) problems the University was experiencing that the end result of the Master Plan would help correct, etc.; if they were more open and gave members of the University this avenue of connecting with them, it probably would have curbed the idea that the administration was "unapproachable" and "secretive." No, I am not the first person to point out the necessity of open dialogue. I just wanted to recast it for possible other members of the administration facing similiar complaints (now or in the future). No, I don't think starting a blog would have solved all of the problems. But it would have helped facilitate understanding between persons. And, yes, I think Professor Krauss should start a blog, too. As a point of order, here is an example blog entry describing some issues with Case – The Miseducation of Case Western.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithThere is no "About Me" Pagehttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2005/11/04/there_is_no_about_me_page2005-11-04T18:11:31Z2005-11-04T18:11:34Z
I don't have an "About Me" page linked to from this blog. This is, obviously, in direct violation of rules #1 and #2 of Jakob Nielsen's Weblog Usability Guidelines. It also violates Commandment 5. I'll have to spend a few minutes and cook one of those up, I suppose.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithHurricaneshttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2005/10/07/hurricanes2005-10-07T16:53:01Z2005-10-07T16:50:54Z
If you haven't seen it yet, Ronald Vojacek is volunteering for The Salvation Army to aid those areas and people hit by hurricanes Katrina and Rita; and he's blogging it in Ronald Vojacek's Hurricane Journal.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithBack from Vacationhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2005/08/29/back_from_vacation2005-08-29T21:41:03Z2005-08-30T23:11:36Z

For those who emailed me last week, I was on vacation. And, by "vacation," I mean that I actually disconnected myself from my computer(s) for a period of nine days. It was refreshing, pleasant, and very restful. (And, not entirely true, I did logon a couple times just to scan the subject lines of some emails to make sure the data centers hadn't caught on fire or something.)

Coming back this morning, I had 1134 non-spam and non-machine-produced emails awaiting my attention. I have just now processed all of them in the following manner:

  1. All work emails which could be answered and/or dealt with in a period of less than 5 minutes were dealt with accordingly.
  2. All work emails of a "critical" nature were filed into a "critical" folder.
  3. All other work emails were filed into an "enqueued" folder.
  4. All other emails remain unread.

I have just now finished processing the "critical" folder and am about to move on to the remaining "enqueued" folder. So, if you have emailed me and haven't heard back from me yet, I will be getting back to you shortly.

For those keeping tabs, keeping scores, or are generally curious about the going-on's, I have a busy several weeks/month ahead of me. Currently slated on the agenda:

  • The various Chicken Little events that phase in and out of existence each day that vary in size, scope, and severity.
  • Re-working of the preadmitted and prospective students account/identities generation and tracking. Making it work more seamlessly, more quickly, more "as expected," and, in general, just better.
  • Deployment of the new SSO system into production and migration of all existing applications currently employing Pubcookie over to CAS.
  • Cleaning up the underlying markup, fixing the interface, and adding in some features for Blog@Case Topics.
  • Cleaning up the underlying markup, fixing the interface, and adding in some features for Topics.case.edu.

And, for some reason, my brain is telling me that I am missing two items from that list. Just can't think of them right now. At any rate, if you haven't heard from me and expect to; you should be hearing from me shortly.

Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithMore Blogging on the Wayhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2005/08/10/more_blogging_on_the_way2005-08-10T23:37:53Z2005-08-10T23:37:53Z
Yes, I just had a blog storm where I "link-dumped" some of the items that have been enqueued that I hadn't gotten around to talking about yet. And, yes, there are more. But, right now, a reprieve as I go to find dinner.
Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smithHatshttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2005/05/27/hats2005-05-27T18:53:31Z2005-05-27T19:57:58Z

I wear a lot of different hats. No, not hats as in the literal clothing accessory you adorn your head with. I am referring to metaphorical hats – hats I wear at work – labels, if you will.

For example, if you are reading this blog entry, you most likely consider me to wear the hat: The Blog@Case Guy. But, I wasn't always The Blog@Case Guy. Actually, I am rarely The Blog@Case Guy. Most of the time, I am (and these are used sorta synonymously):

  • The Metadirectory Guy
  • The Account Management System Guy
  • The Identity Management Guy

There are other hats. A lot of the time, it depends on the context. If the person is talking blogs, then... well, I'm that guy; but if the topic suddenly turns to the email system; suddenly, I am The Email Guy. (Which, I assure you, I really am not. Sure, sure, I help with some aspects of the email system; but there are others far more qualified than myself in that respect. I am not the one who can, from memory, telnet to port 25 and send an email. We have others who can do that like the back of their hands.) In similar respects, I can become The Directory Server Guy quite suddenly in the middle of a conversation, which can be somewhat accurate depending on the specifics of what the conversation is about.

I am, also, very often labelled The Open Source Guy. I find that one to be funny. The blog system is based on a non-open source piece of software. The email server is not an open source product. The directory servers are not open source. I use Windows as my desktop. I want to move to OS X. I think I got labelled with that because, in addition to normal software, I do use open source software, too; like Apache and Linux. So, I guess the logic that followed might have been: "he uses or is a proponent of using at least one, if not two or more, pieces of open source software over proprietary alternatives; he must be The Open Source Guy." Oh well, there are worse hats to wear. I just wish that, instead of Open Source Guy, I was The Guy Who Chooses the Right Tool for the Job Regardless of Pseudo-Religious Affiliations with Software Development Methodology and Weird Yet Strongly Powerful Affinities for Certain Corporations' Products.

The hat(s) I wear are, also, directly related to what a person has a question about. For example, if the person has a PHP question, I am The PHP Guy or, more generally, The Web Application Guy. In terms of web services, I am the The REST/RSS/Atom/SOAP-Hater Guy (I wear that hat proudly).

Anyways, here is a non-exhaustive list of the hats I wear (in other people's minds or of my own accord) during the course of a normal week:

  • The Blog Guy
  • The REST/RSS/Atom/SOAP-Hater Guy
  • The Metadirectory Guy
  • The Account Management System Guy
  • The Identity Management Guy
  • The Directory Server Guy
  • The Email Guy
  • The Shibboleth Guy
  • The Wiki Guy
  • The Perl Guy
  • The PHP Guy
  • The CSS/(X)HTML/Semantic/Javascript Guy
  • The Apache Guy
  • The MySQL Guy
  • The (PL/)SQL Guy

What hats do you wear (voluntarily and involuntarily)?

Jeremy Smithjeremy.smith@case.eduhttp://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith