Flashes of Panic

Turning off the baby monitors

Our baby monitors beep annoyingly when they can’t establish a connection to the base units in the girls’ rooms. Sometimes turning them off and back on again will re-establish a connection, but last night I turned off the one for the yellow room because it wouldn’t pick the connection back up.

This morning I discovered the reason: the cord for the base unit runs under the crib and plugs into an outlet in the wall the crib sits against. The plug had been pulled out just enough to shut off the base unit.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t intentionally unplugged, but it reminded me of all the questions I would see in security forums about how to limit kids’ internet access. The conventional wisdom was that when the kids were smart enough to get around your filter, you should just shut it down rather than escalate. Now I’m wondering if it’s time to turn off the baby monitors now that at least one of the girls is capable of shutting hers off on her own, or if I should just plug it in to a socket she can’t reach from the crib.

Posted by pjm at 2:25 PM | Comments (0)

Found money 2012

(If you’re interested in previous reports: 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, and 2006.)

As I suggested two years ago, found money has been way down since we moved. So much so that last year I didn’t bother to count the bin. This year’s tally represents two years and is still the lowest since I started: $17.47.

• Four dollar bills. I don’t remember where I found these, but they were all together, new and crisp and very tightly folded together.
• 21 quarters ($5.25), 50 dimes, 23 nickels, 207 pennies. Needless to say this is the lowest counts of all of these since I started keeping track.
• 0.32 CDN (not included in the total), including three dimes. Given that the two-year span included over a week spent in Moncton, this is unsurprising.
• 5 centavos from Argentina. No idea where this came from.
• One very unidentified slug with two deep parallel (but off-center) grooves in one otherwise-blank side, and a baseball batter on the other side. Probably a token from some kind of arcade.

I’m still collecting, but I must admit the numbers here are discouraging.

Posted by pjm at 1:25 PM | Comments (0)

"Performant" is not a word

It’s common in the tech sector to come across people who don’t write terribly well. In many cases, it’s because English isn’t their first language, and they should be congratulated for writing it as well as they do, but over and over I find people without that excuse who still can’t effectively explain what they do. (Hint: this is useful when it comes time to convince other people to pay them to do it.)

My favorite example in recent years has been the fake word “performant”. This word is used as an adjective applied to something which performs well, i.e. runs quickly or efficiently. But it’s not a word; it’s just jargon, most often used either by people who want to sound knowledgeable or people who simply don’t know any better. In fact, because it usually forces the sentence into a less active form (“The framework is performant” rather than “The framework performs well”) it actually makes the point weaker.

If you want to say something performs well, say it, don’t obscure it with silly jargon.

Posted by pjm at 7:49 AM | Comments (0)

I never said that

“Marketer sends clueless email to blog author” is such a tired cliché I’m almost embarrassed to write this, but apparently the marketers still haven’t found their clues.

Here are two clues:

• If you’re going to say, “When you say X, you’re not kidding!” make sure I actually said X.
• Don’t say “Your site may have single handedly saved our sanity!” when I’ve only posted nine times in a year.

I’m not going to mention their name because their site looks like the site of a small, struggling start-up. But future marketers, you’re on notice.

Posted by pjm at 7:28 PM | Comments (0)

sed: illegal option -- r

I’m porting a very complicated Subversion repository to git using this helpful migration guide, but because I’m operating on a Mac I hit a minor roadblock. Specifically, I was trying to run this sed wizardry the migration guide uses for generating git branches from the Subversion branches, and I got this error:

sed: illegal option — r

The initial web search told me that the issue was that the BSD-style sed that comes standard in Mac OS X (Snow Leopard, in my case) doesn’t provide the same options as Gnu sed. One suggestion was using ports or Homebrew to install gsed instead, but for complicated reasons neither is a valid option for me. (Thumbnail: I uninstalled port to try Homebrew, but my Homebrew installation is broken.)

Then I found this offhand SuperUser comment which solved my problem:

Use -E instead of -r on OS X.

Now you know, aren’t you glad?

Posted by pjm at 3:16 PM | Comments (0)

Big day for a little guy

Today is a big day for our nephew Magnus. He’s had way too many such big days for someone as young as he is, but the kid keeps bobbing back up like a cork. That said, he’s still on our minds.

ETA: Looks good so far.

Posted by pjm at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

Baby Brezza with blades that won't turn

(This is one of those posts which will only be of interest to the few people who find it via a web search.)

We received a Baby Brezza baby food maker for Christmas. Basically it’s a small combination steamer and food processor, since the goal of most baby food is to be cooked until soft and then chopped small.

Unfortunately the blending part didn’t work on the first run. The motor was clearly spinning, but the blades were not. This review on Amazon—which is the “most helpful negative review” only four days after posting—observes that apparently many of the units are shipping with a misaligned belt which doesn’t carry power from the motor to the blade axle. I suspected we had such a dud.

If you have such a dud unit and found this page via web search, you have two options. You can start taking the unit apart until you can realign that belt, or you can take the unit back wherever it came from and get one which works.

If you should happen to follow the first course (as we did, having pears already diced and steamed and not wanting to throw them out), here’s what to do:

• Take off the canister and drain any hot water before starting work. This should prevent any messy or scalding surprises.
• Turn the unit over and look for the five phillips-head screws which are recessed in the bottom. These are not the ones holding on the suction-cup feet, although they are nearby; they are larger. You will need a screwdriver with a long shaft, because the screws are set quite deep inside the unit. Note that the fifth one, in the very back, is a long way down and may be difficult to see, let alone turn.
• Get as many of those out as possible (preferably all).
• Turn the unit right-side up again. Slowly lift the top away from the bottom. This will be relatively easy if you get all five screws out; I didn’t.
• As you’re separating the top from the bottom, look for the belt running from the back of the unit (where the motor is) to a big wheel directly in the center. That’s the drive wheel for the blades. If the belt isn’t snugly around the teeth of that wheel, use a screwdriver or some other such tool to adjust it so it is.
• Once the belt is in place, put the top and bottom pieces together again, and replace the five screws.
• Verify that the fix worked by putting the canister and blades back on, perhaps with some water in the canister, and running then “blend” setting very briefly. It should be obvious if the blades are turning now.

I know these instructions aren’t perfect, but if you’re brave enough to open the unit in the first place, they should keep you from following any false trails.

Posted by pjm at 9:21 PM | Comments (0)

Indirect brute-forcing passwords?

I am still in the process of reading James Fallows’ article on his wife’s Gmail account being hacked, but I was struck by this statement:

For reasons too complex to explain here, even some systems, like Gmail’s, that don’t allow intruders to make millions of random guesses at a password can still be vulnerable to brute-force attacks.

Let me guess: this margin is too small to explain how this works. But I would love to know; in my world, the definition of a brute-force attack requires millions of guesses at a password.

Posted by pjm at 9:27 PM | Comments (0)

Unsubscribing the easier way

As usual, only after I did all the work the long way did I find the easy way.

Halfway through November’s stack of catalogs, which I promise was huge (six inches high at least, maybe eight), I got a response (from Patagonia, thank you) saying, “We use Catalog Choice, maybe you should submit a request through them.”

Sure enough, Catalog Choice was exactly what I needed. I could fill out an initial form with name and address (and specify “name variants” at the same address, so I can cancel catalogs being sent to A, H and A too) and then find each catalog in their system, fill in a customer number and key code from the mailing label (if they’re there) and click a button. They then take care of formatting and sending the appropriate email message or submitting the correct form. In some cases they forward you to a form on the company’s site, which is fine; basically what they’ve done is automate as much of the process as possible.

These are the companies I was able to submit requests for through Catalog Choice:

• L.L. Bean (addressed to H)
• Crate & Barrel
• Shutterfly
• American Girl (twice)
• Grandin Road
• CP Toys
• HearthSong
• Magic Cabin
• Target (confirmed fairly promptly)
• World Wildlife Fund
• Crazy Shirts (responded immediately with a nice email confirming removal)
• Frontgate
• Exposures
• Mindware (my third request, actually; I’ve emailed them twice and missed their response to my first one)

Then these companies I requested removal the long way:

• Vermont Country Store by site “contact us” form; responded promptly and nicely.
• Garnet Hill by site “contact us” form; responded promptly and nicely
• Land’s End (Kids catalog) by site “contact us” form; responded promptly and nicely.
• Young Explorers by site “contact us” form
• One Step Ahead by email
• Patagonia, as mentioned above, needed a few emails but was ultimately very helpful
• Wine Country Gift Baskets by site “contact us” form; responded promptly and nicely. (I wonder how I wound up on that list.)
• Giggle by email
• Mile Marker Sports (my SportHill dealer) by site contact form
• Ballard Designs by email
• Eddie Bauer by email
• Title Nine has a very good contact preferences form on their site
• Prana via site “contact us” form
• Home Decorators Collection has a “catalog unsubscription request” option on their contact form
• Athleta by email
• Sundance and Company Store have responded positively to my requests back in October, but they haven’t kicked in yet; remember, these things get queued up weeks in advance.
• Cricket by email
• B&H Photo has a form on their site; put in your catalog number and you’re off the list, poof!

All this represents a stack of glossy paper that weighs almost as much as one of the babies. That’s paper that has to be harvested from trees, processed, bleached, etc. etc. and then shipped across the country so I can dump it in our recycling bin. I hope Catalog Choice lives up to its promise so I can stem that flow a bit.

Posted by pjm at 8:09 PM | Comments (0)

Unsubscribing

Just as our email inboxes become choked with offers and “newsletters” from companies we once did business with, I’ve been reminded that there are still bunches of companies out there who do things the old-fashioned way and send us paper catalogs. I’ve been unsubscribing from the emails recently and decided it was time to do the same for the paper catalogs; it is, after all, catalog season.

Why bother? Ecology. We’re sufficiently busy that most of our catalogs go directly in the recycling bin, unopened. They’re not going to landfills, fine, but why waste the energy needed to make the paper, print it, and mail it long distances when we’re just going to drop it in a bin to be pulped? Better to reduce the stream.

(This is related to the philosophy Noah quoted a few months ago: “I used to put out fires all of the time. I finally figured out that it was better to get rid of the arsonists.”)

The spam legislation I’ve long derided has done one thing for us; email from legitimate companies tends to have a link somewhere at the bottom which makes it easy to remove yourself from the list, and it tends to work. Paper catalogs lack this convenience. I thought it might be worthwhile to document the hoops I’ve had to jump through in reducing the paper load to our mailbox.

Here’s the first batch of catalogs, and what I had to do. N.B. When I say, “requested removal,” that means I politely asked to have our address taken off the list, and provided the full mailing address on the catalog they’d mailed us, along with any codes which looked like they might help some hourly-wage service employee find our address and delete it. Everything was phrased as though I was asking them a favor, i.e. intended to make them feel good about helping me.

Also, every company makes the point that their mailings are often prepared months in advance, so getting our names off the lists might not mean an immediate cessation of paper. They are very apologetic about this so I have to assume it’s true.

If I used a web form to request removal, 99% of the time that means there was no indication on their site of how to get off the mailing list (although 100% of the time there is a link to request catalogs!)

• Mini Boden: Requested removal via web form; got a robo-reply.
• Company Kids: Requested removal via email (no form on site); no response yet.
• Hanna Andersson: Requested removal via web form; got a polite, apparently non-automated response telling me it was done (with the usual caveats)
• Tea: Requested removal via web form: no response yet.
• MindWare: A FAQ on their website led me to request removal by email; at least they had that in the FAQ list! No response yet.
• Sundance: Requested removal via web form; got a polite response but not done yet (this was early in the process and I didn’t provide enough information)
• The Land Of Nod: This crew cracks me up. To remove yourself from their catalog, you send your name and address to their contact address with the subject line “KNOCK OFF THE CATALOGS”, as described in their FAQ. I got an automated response, but they get extra points for having a bit of whimsy in their process; they might not have a web unsubscribe form, but they do understand that someone will want to do this and they’re extending their corporate communications thinking that far.
• Pottery Barn Kids: Turns out Williams Sonoma Inc. has a “catalog mailing preference form” in which you can unsubscribe yourself from catalogs from Williams Sonoma, West Elm, and all Pottery Barn brands. As far as one-stop shopping goes, Williams Sonoma, Inc. wins, because I’m sure PBKids wasn’t going to be the only catalog we got from them. No confirmation by email, but that’s OK.
• Grandin Road: From best to worst. According to their website the way to be removed from their mailing list is to call their 1-800 number (which is, by the way, 1-888-263-9850). Uh huh.
• Orvis: In line with their sustainability philosophy (although that philosophy doesn’t actually include this), they have an unsubscribe form on their website. No confirmation email, but again, that’s OK.
• L.L. Bean: I sort of cheated here. For one thing, unlike the other catalogs, I didn’t actually get one to have in front of me, but I’ve been getting their catalogs for ages. Second, I have an account on their website, so I was able to log in and then go to “My Account” and find “Catalog Mailing Preferences” in the left navigation bar… but I can’t link you there. I suggest signing up for an account and then setting your preferences to get no catalogs. Still, thanks to Bean for making it possible to make that request online.

Maybe I’ll post another one of these when the next batch of catalogs comes in… maybe.

ETA 11/1/11:

• Uncommon Goods, “the gifts they’ll want before they know they want them,” also has a contact preferences form. It’s a pop-up so I can’t link to it directly, but go to their home page, scroll to the bottom and click “Contact Preferences.”

Posted by pjm at 7:40 PM | Comments (0)

Hands full

The reason you aren’t seeing so much here recently is that A and I have been busy with twin girls since the end of March. I haven’t closed up shop completely, but there are definitely many things higher on the priority list at the moment.

Posted by pjm at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

Is there a limit to network-effect benefits?

In recent months I’ve been finding Stack Overflow and the related Stack Exchange network sites to be a tremendously valuable resource for resolving technology problems. It’s not that they can always answer my question, it’s that frequently someone else has had the same question before, and I can piggy-back on the answers they got. Searching Stack Overflow, in other words, is often more useful than asking Stack Overflow.

The value of Stack Overflow as a Q&A site is the huge number of people using it. For any given Ruby on Rails question, for example, there’s a pretty good bet someone among the thousands of users scanning those questions will have an answer. Things get a little thinner when you get to very new technologies like SproutCore (for a while I was among the top 20 answerers for SproutCore, which says more about the traffic in that tag than it does about me).

However, as Stack Overflow grows, the number of questions seems to be overwhelming the number of answers. I’ve posted two questions in the last two days, and as of this writing neither has been “viewed” by as many as ten Stack Overflow users. This isn’t because the questions are unanswerable, I think; it’s that there are so many other questions to answer, mine have been buried almost immediately.

We always say the value of a network grows with the size of the network. But Stack Overflow is suggesting to me that there might be a limit to that rule. If the network becomes big enough that messages get lost, the value of the network may begin to fall as it gets larger.

The Area 51 site where new Stack Exchange sites are suggested, debated, and spawned seems to aim at building a critical mass of users to make each new site valuable and useful. There isn’t an internal control for sites which get too big and therefore lose value; I wonder how that could be created? Is this a big enough problem to bother?

Posted by pjm at 8:01 AM | Comments (0)