seagull

seagull
Originally uploaded by wck

on the elizabeth river in virginia

braindump

* I wish I could write a shell script to schedule haircuts. What's with this having to pick a phone thing? ;-)
* Currently addicted to Rancid's Olympia WA song. Deeply, deeply addicted.
* I've had a partially written post on We'll Find a Way by the Ducky Boys floating around in my head for a few weeks, and I'm never going to finish it, so here it is in pieces

I never go up to midtown without a lot of grumbling, but I ended up spending the night in a hotel up on 50 something and 7th ave, just on the north edge of Times Square, on Dec 30. I was sitting at the desk, watching the sun go down and turn the skyscrapers a fantastic bright orange color, though the brown tinted hotel windows. It felt so 80s in some very weird way. I was listening to We'll Find a Way and a few other songs on a small playlist that kept looping and looping. Later in the evening I walked my way south down 7th, though the bitter cold, and after midnight back north up Broadway, still with the same mix. This song fit in with the crystal cold, with the blazing orangish lights so well that I now can't listen to it without the "hey nanana"s sounding like a setting sun and sharp cold air. And stumbling past crowds of tourists- walking Times Square a night early- some sense of dislocation, rooted by the chorus coming up and up all evening.

The "Harry Potter" problem in recommendations

Greg Linden covered the Harry Potter problem in a blog post on recommendation technologies a few years ago:

A very sharp and experienced developer named Eric wrote the first version of similarities that made it out to the Amazon website. It was great working with Eric. I learned much from him over the years.

The first version of similarities was quite popular. But it had a problem, the Harry Potter problem.

Oh, yes, Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a runaway bestseller. Kids buy it. Adults buy it. Everyone buys it.

So, take a book, any book. If you look at all the customers who bought that book, then look at what other books they bought, rest assured, most of them have bought Harry Potter.

-http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/03/early-amazon-similarities.html


When I worked on the personalization team we were still struggling with the problem- there are definite ways to identify a Harry Potter problem, but you have to remember to apply them. Adding to that, within certain genres there are Harry Potter books/music albums that are only runaway successes within those genres. If you compared those books to the general list of books that amazon sells, they wouldn't look like books that everyone has bought. Taking it a step further, if then if you narrow the scope to only related books you'll find that they are crazy popular.

The biggest side effect of the Harry Potter problem is that it weakens recommendations. For instance, I've bought the O'Reilly regex pocket book and the O'Reilly Python Cookbook and Ruby Cookbook. From those three books, you can pretty easily peg me as a web nerd and safely recommend a Steve Souder's website performance book. Those are very strongly correlated purchases in a narrow band of interest. However, because I'm a geek, I've also bought Neal Stephenson's latest book, Anathem. As have a few hundred thousand OTHER geeks. We could say that Anathem is a nerd's Harry Potter.

So I received an email today from amazon with a list of recommended books, most of which were based off Anathem and Daniel Silva's latest book, Moscow Rules (great book but also a bit of a Harry Potter widely-bought book). As you might guess, the recommendations were really bad. I wish that email had a link that I could click that would say "never recommend any of these books to me again please" -I could go to each detail page and mark that, but it would take a massive amount of time.

santa on a WA state ferry

santa on a WA state ferry
Originally uploaded by wck

From my Santa christmas tree

stagger

I'm still working on that "blackberry flip vs ipod" blog post. I will still write it some day and I am still using the flip for my music player. I recently discovered that the flip has another minus against it, in that it has no "repeat 1" unless you make a playlist containing a single song and put that on repeat.

I've been kind of hooked on Stagger from the Street Dogs (it's on Back to the World) for a few days. This is the first song on the mix CD I have in my car at the moment, and I've listened to it every morning at the start of my ride to the train station. I don't know why in particular I've gotten so hung up on this song, although the opening is especially beautiful. It's not even my all time favorite Street Dogs song, so... who knows. Taste is weird.

christmas card photo shoot

christmas card photo shoot
Originally uploaded by wck

Today was the one day that comes only once, each November. Yes, the annual "take a cute picture of my sister's kids for her christmas card" day. Dresses are pulled out. Squeeky toys to attract their attention are gathered. Lights are clipped to doorframes. And then it's total chaos. This was the first year I shot this in digital, which I suppose made it marginally more workable, although I do miss the black and white photos I usually take.

Anyway, we all sort of survived, and I'm sure next year's photo shoot day will be here in the blink of an eye.

more music!

I think's possibly been over a year since I've posted anything about music to this blog. Which is insane, because I started it to write about music I listen to, and I certainly still listen, constantly. Probably more now that I have that looooong train ride to sit and enjoy an album.

Here's the mix that I listened to this morning. I've FINALLY got one device that does phone calls and plays music... and it's not an iphone. It's a blackberry flip, and in a week or so I'll write a review of it- I'm still figuring a few things out. I originally wrote about my desire for this kind of gadget in March 2005. Hello progress, nice to see you three and a half years later.

So gadget snark aside, this could almost be a St Patricks day mix. I've been a bit heavier than usual into the Celtic punk/folk thing since our trip to the virginia beach irish festival 4 weeks ago.

1. Phoenix Park - The Tossers
   A new album to me, which was stupid because they're a wonderful band and it's been out since forever. I love the beautiful melody. I want to wake up to this song every morning


2. Smokin' Bowl - The Real McKenzies
   Two summers ago, walking down 8th ave in NYC, I remember a few weeks where I played this song over and over and over and over several more times.


3. Rise Above - Black Flag
   see above comment, sans the hook


4. A Rainy Night In Soho - The Pogues
   Rum, Sodomy and the Lash... is, I don't know... perfect. I adore this album. I know this is considered an "important" album, but I have such a deep personal connection with it. Walking in the evening, listening to this- I love most of the songs on here too much.


5. Upstarts and Broken Hearts - Drop Kick Murphys
   One of my favorite songs ever


6. Blue Period - Smithereens
   amazing use of strings. I listen to this one over and over and over.


7. Galway Girl - Town Pants
   they played this at the festival, and wow- the hook from this one got stuck in my head for a few days

i voted

This is my 4th presidential election I've voted in. I was 19 in 1996, so I campaigned for Clinton in New Hampshire and voted for him, and I've voted Democratic in every election since. It's been exciting to see so many other people my age who never bothered to register or vote to actually follow through and do both of those this year.

tom

tom
Originally uploaded by wck

playing at home

Dust

I have finally- thanks to a 5 year old who was too inquisitive with my point and shoot digital camera and the rising costs of film development- broken down and gotten a DSLR. Yes, I'm the last photo nerd on the planet to get one, I know. I still adore film, but Kate's doing in of the lens on my little digital elph pushed me to just get a DSLR.

My new camera has one of the built in dust sensors, so over lunch today with another former art major (like me now slumming as a software person) we discussed how you used to deal with dust with film developing and printing. If you had a speck of dust on a print that you just couldn't get rid of, you had to manually paint it out. With a real paintbrush and ink. I'm serious! I spent so many hours hunched over my black and white prints before a show, with a teensy paintbrush, making tiny dots with a bit of ink to simulate film grain over dust spots. My eyes ache just thinking about it. And really... talk about an arcane skill! This is one of those spots where I guess digital technology really has a massive advantage over film.

macarons

Until the trip to Seattle this summer, I had been perfectly content to think of pistachio macaroons as a Paris thing. However, when I was out poking around Pike Place Market, I discovered that Le Panier now carries macarons. Hmmm... and they're delicious.

I just stumbled over a blog post on macaron reviews in NYC: In Search of the French Macaron in NYC…. Now I forsee a side trip to Rockefeller Center at some point.

food and security

Via emergent chaos, a blog post on foodies and security nerds.

I find it interesting that security people and foodies are strongly correlated. Or at least are strongly correlated among the ones I know.

Too funny. So here's my list. Bold is food that you have eaten.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat's milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald's Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S'mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frog's Legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

-the HTML is via a handy form that will generate the html for you. http://reddywhip.org/lj/foods/

Soho to Penn Station

Viviane suggested that I blog this information, so here goes. She wanted to know how to get from our office at Broadway and Houston to Penn Station, buy a NJT ticket, and get on her train. I've optimized this route to pieces, so here it is.

1. enter the Broadway Lafayette station at Broadway and Houston
2. Go all the way down the first set of stairs past the turnstile to the BDFV Uptown platform. wait just behind the stairs
3. Get on the first train that comes and go 1 stop to West 4th
   
4. When you exit at West 4th, the escalator that skips the mezzanine is right there. Get on it and go to the ACE Uptown platform
5. walk down to the other end of the platform. take a C or E train.
6. exit at 34th Street/Penn. you will be very close to the turnstiles, go out them and down the half flight of stairs
7. you're now on the lower level of NYP Station. Walk straight ahead, and take the first corridor that goes off to the right. That corridor starts off with LIRR tracks, and the NJT tracks are at the far end
8. Near track 6ish or 4ish, there's a set of ticket machines that will rarely have a line. Buy your ticket there.
9. There are NJT monitors nearby- watch them for your train. You will see the track announced 10 minutes before it will leave NYP

glasses

ana & me
Originally uploaded by wck

Nerd glasses on me and nerd glasses on my niece! I did always say when she was little that I knew she was going to be a programmer when she grew up.

trains, ferries and buses

Riding on the amtrak cascades train to PDX. It occurs to me that this trip isn't even half over, and I've racked up a pretty good set of transportation methods.



* Commuter rail: to NYC last Wednesday, to EWR
* subway: within NYC
* monorail: EWR airport train station to terminal
* airplane: to Seattle
* taxi: to downtown
* bus rapid transit: downtown Seattle transportation
* bus: out to Greenlake
* car: driving out to anacortes ferry
* ferry: to and from the islands
* train: to and from PDX
* streetcar: MAX service in PDX

Not bad, 11 modes of transportation, but I'm missing bikes. Last night I could have borrowed my friend's bike, but I chose to walk around the neighborhood with Bandon instead.