Not All Movement Is Progress

I was having a conversation with a friend recently. We both work in “Big Tech.” Both our employers are sensitive to employees making remotely public statements – and his in particular is pretty notorious for over-reacting. So in an abundance of caution I’ll point out that this rambling represents neither of our companies – just a conversation between two people who’ve been in tech “a fair while.”

We were talking about the most recent operating system released by a Big Tech company that runs on their fruit-themed hardware.

The release has caused a bit of a kerfuffle – it no longer runs a set of applications that were supported by its predecessor. Like other transitions in this company’s past, this one was deliberate and foreshadowed across a couple years. If a customer depends on an application that this OS won’t run, they find an alternative, convince themselves they don’t really need that application, or they don’t upgrade. This last is problematic. Not in the short term – they’ll still get critical updates for their old operating system for a while – but eventually. And if they need to buy new fruit-themed hardware, that new hardware likely won’t run that old operating system. So those customers are one hardware failure away from running out of options.

It’s also generally been a bit of a bumpy release. The initial release had more than its fair share of issues, and even after a couple minor releases there are ongoing sources of customer pain and breakage. I’ve encountered some of these bumps personally, and I reached out to this friend – on a personal basis – to relate my anecdote.

I think it’s safe to say that most tech consumers don’t have personal contacts inside “Big Tech.” They can potentially contact support if they have a problem, but that’s where it ends.

“I don’t expect you to fix this,” I started, “I just want you to hear the unfiltered voice of your customer.” I went on to explain the problem, and how I thought they could have given their customers more options – as they had during past large technology transitions.

I pointed out that, from my perspective, this transition was different from the big transitions in the past. In the past, I argued, customers saw a difference, and that visibility made the changes – even the unwelcome ones – easier to understand. During the transition from their “classic” operating system to their NeXT (sic.) generation operating system in c. 2001, everything looked different. When they changed the CPU their machines were built around in c. 2006, customers bought new computers. Those changes were moments of transition – painful transitions for some customers – that enabled new things.

This time, a customer who “upgrades” their software gets to do less. And it’s pretty hard to explain to a customer how being able to do less enables new things.

That got me thinking about the idea of progress in computing, and software. This is a case where we’re “improving” a computing systems by making it do less than it could do before – and that feels like not progress.

Maybe I’m just old. Part of me can’t give up the Apple ][ that I could open the cover on, and basically understand from the component level up.

That’s not computers anymore.  And as magical as carrying the internet around in my pocket, or on my wrist, is – and it is – I think we’ve lost some valuable things along the way.

…but a whimper

So the Senate acted as expected – voting along party lines to acquit Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of congress and leave him in office.

To paraphrase my favorite TV shepherd “I’m not even sure I think they were wrong.”

Trump is undoubtedly guilty of the offenses he was charged with. Mitch McConnell is undoubtedly a toadying ass. And Mike Pence is undoubtedly more adept at manipulating the US political establishment than his boss, and thereby likely even more dangerous.

“If you strike me down, he shall become more powerful than you can ever imagine.”

“I dunno, I can imagine quite a bit…”

That Pence is not in charge is cold comfort.

There was no winning move. To not impeach Trump was tacit approval of his behavior. To impeach Trump mandated giving the Republican controlled Senate control over the outcome.

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,”

The odds of the Republicans breaking ranks and removing Trump from office – regardless of the charges, or the evidence – were basically zero from the outset.

Democrats fall apart. Republicans fall in line.

Well, save Mitt Romney, it turns out. And his behavior over time has made it really difficult to think about his actions in any rational way (or maybe difficult to think about his actions in any way other than a rational actor).

Basically, McConnell was correct in saying “If this was all about politics, and it was, at least at the moment I think it is fair to conclude that we won and they lost.”

Take a second to unpack “we” and “they.” “We” is pretty clearly the Republican party. “They,” as far as I can tell, includes the Democratic party, rule of law, and whomever tries to reign in presidential power in the future.

Including “American Democracy” in that list feels like hyperbole. Just because something’s hyperbole doesn’t mean it’s false.

As of this writing, FiveThirtyEight gives Sanders nearly even odds of gaining a majority of pledged delegates in the Democratic primary. A self-described socialist that has or will alienate moderate voters, regardless of which side of the aisle they lean toward.

I’ve been saying it since he was elected, and I see no reason to amend it now – “If he [Trump] runs again, he wins again.”

I don’t think it’s likely that Trump wins the next election – I think it’s nearly guaranteed that the Democrats lose it.

Please, America.

Prove me wrong.

Not with a bang…

As of a handful of hours ago the United Kingdom is officially out of the European Union.

I don’t think anyone really knows what that means.

One thing it means is that you shouldn’t ask a large group of people a question unless you already know the answer. (cough: Mr. Cameron, please take note.)

Anyway… I’m not normally a “chat with the person next to you” sort of person on a plane. I’m more of the “we’re both stuck on this flying cigar, let’s ignore eachother and focus on getting to the other end” sort of person.

This trip was different. I ended up having a chat with the pensioners next to me. We were flying from LHR to SFO (I had a meeting in the Bay Area before heading to Seattle). From there they’d board a five week cruise to Sydney (as in Australia). She was Irish and had worked for an airline. He was British and had been a printer, working for others before ending up running his own business before he retired.

They were, as they put it, “obviously” Brexit supporters.

This put me in the position of being able to play the “I’m just a dumb American living in the UK, please explain this to me” card. You gotta play the hand you’re dealt, so…

I managed to ignore the occasional Euromyth (it was the first time someone had asserted to my face that the EU required carrots to be straight – I litterally bit my tongue to avoid laughing out loud), and focused on trying to understand the core of their position. I think it came down to four pillars.

  1. The EU started as a free trade organization but was increasingly encroaching on national soverignty – imposing rules over member countries far beyond free trade.
  2. The EU governing body was unelected and increasingly corrupt, so the UK was better out than in.
  3. The UK was outside the EU before and it was fine, so it would be fine again.
  4. Specifically, the “EU needs the UK as much as the UK needs the EU,” so the negative repercussions of leaving would be mild, if there were any at all.

We talked about Boris (he’ll be fine and was a far better choice than Corbyn who was “away with the faries”) and Trump (he’s a complete idiot and the comparison to Boris is purely superficial). We talked about the Irish border (there won’t be one, but even if there is, a country has a right to control its borders).

Through the conversation I said two things which – I like to think – gave them pause. I argued that by their description Brexit wasn’t that different from one of the large economy states in the US choosing to break away from the union. I came down on the remain side because, “teams are stronger than heroes” (thanks Zach) – we’re stronger together than we are apart.

Staying in the Union, or the EU – I argued, took sometimes uncomfortable compromise, but so did marrage. They had clearly been married for decades, and the glance they shared suggested I might have touched on something.

The other moment they seemed affected was when I said I wondered what impact Brext would have on those in the UK just making ends meet. To me, I said, it would be irritating if imported food stuffs and staples increased in price by 10-20%. Since they were about to check into a floating hotel for over a month, I figured they’d be ok too. But I wondered out loud if their (adult) children, or their grandchildren might be more affected. They had been nodding along in agreement when I mused that they’d be fine. Their nods slowed a bit at the mention of their kids and grandkids.

I concluded that maybe their kids aren’t as financially solid as grandma and grandpa are.

Guess it’s too late to worry about that now.

Hope they kept some of their pension fund aside to help their kids. ‘Cause they seemed the sort who’d look down on taking assistance from the state.

What I’ve Been Reading

I had given up on RSS for a fair while after Google killed Reader. Some months ago I decided to try again, using Feedly* and to be more selective about the feeds I followed.

When I occasionally send articles to potentially interested parties, they often ask “where do you find this stuff?”

So I figured I’d answer.

I’ve roughly divided my feeds into topics, and provided a link to a sample article.

If this list suggests other blogs I might want to follow – drop me a line with a pointer to a good sample article. I’d welcome the reccomendation.

General Interest:

Economics:

Tech:

Security/Crypto:

* I’ve since switched to self-hosting miniflux, but you probably don’t care.

The Damage Looks Pretty Bad From Out Here

I started writing this thinking it would be about the ongoing goat rodeo around the impeachment trial, and the disfunction in both American politics and media it highlights – but that’s not what ended up coming out…

Distance is a funny thing.  Sometimes it makes things harder to see.  And sometimes it draws things into painfully clear focus.

I work for a large international tech company – and my colleagues here in London are a pretty diverse bunch, hailing from nearly everywhere.  That diversity brings challenges – not everyone is equally proficient in English, for instance. Combine that with different backgrounds, cultural norms, experience levels, and clear communication gets tricky.

But some things span those chasms.  Those moments seize my attention.

The reaction in the office to the recent Seattle shootings, for instance.

Watching my colleagues react to that event – each of them being at least loosely connected to Seattle by nature of their employer having its headquarters there – was a pointed reminder of how much America has normalized gun violence.  Some of my colleagues come from countries that America would generally consider part of the ‘second’ world – and they recognize, sometimes from personal experience, that normalizing these sorts of acts of violence is a destabilizing force in society.

Some of those colleagues are traveling to Seattle this week for a work event to be held not far from the shootings, and they wonder about their personal safety.  If you’re American your instinct might be to dismiss that as over reaction.  Before you do, take a moment and ask yourself:  Is it?  

Seattle has had multiple shootings over the past weeks.  And more broadly America experiences a nearly constant barrage of gun violence in its major cities.

If you were being asked by your employer to travel to such a place, can you really say you wouldn’t be a bit concerned?

If you’re an America you’re likely tired of the gun control debate.  It flares up around these events, gets the left and right wing press into a lather, and then goes away. It’s been this way for most or all of your life.  That’s just the way it is. Like a Star Trek episode, the universe is the same at the end of the episode as it was at the beginning.

It won’t change anything for me, as a gun-owning American, to reiterate that America has a problem that desperately needs attention.

So I won’t.

‘Cause we can’t fix a problem until we recognize that we have one.
And it seems pretty clear that as a whole we aren’t there yet.

So for the moment it seems I’m stuck trying to stay out of harms’ way. 

And grieving for the people who didn’t.

What, the curtains?

With apologies to Nick Hornby.

Which came first, the Monty Python or the geekery? Was I drawn to Python’s breed of ridiculous and surreal comedy because of who I was, or did “getting” them help point me down this path?

I remember watching The Flying Circus on KDOC-TV (channel 56) on the black and white Zenith television in my bedroom as a pre-teen. Laughing at the few sketches that I understood. Wondering who let this clearly insane group of people make a TV show. And more often than not marveling at whatever the hell was going on with the cartoons. It was my first exposure to what I thought was a British sense of humor. Only later would I learn that appreciation for their brand of funny wasn’t universal anywhere.

I first encountered The Final Ripoff in High School – on cassette. I don’t remember for sure, but I think it belonged to my girlfriend – I’ll ask Dawnise if it was hers when she gets home. Suddenly I could listen – over and over – to the sketches I understood and loved. And maybe more importantly, to the ones I didn’t. I bought the collection on CD – probably from Columbia House Records. It might have even been one of the CDs I owned before I owned a CD player.

From Flying Circus I followed the Pythons where they went and had been – How To Irritate People, the Python films, Faulty Towers, Time Bandits, Michael Palin’s travelogues, Terry Jones’ Medieval Lives. I’d give anything connected to that group a try.

And now there are five.

And the world is a little less funny.

And a little less kind.

Rest in joy and laughter, Mr. Jones. And Thank You.

Happy New Year

My sister, brother-in-law, and niece left for Heathrow moments ago – ending a 10 day visit.  

It went well, aside from Dawnise being under the weather for much of it.  

We and they wandered around London – Dawnise managed to rally for a couple Christmas markets, a walk down Regent street, and a trip to Fortnum and Mason to see their famous Christmas windows. I even dragged them to Greenwitch to stand on the prime meridian.

We cooked (and ate) Christmas dinner, had Sunday Roast, had tea and home-made scones, ate a bunch of mince pies, panettone, stollen, and drank gluhwein.

When they weren’t touristing we hung out here, played games and watched some Christmas movies.  

They’ll arrive back in Seattle mid-day, in time to get home and keep their dogs calm during the evening festivities.  

Our plan for this evening is to stay home, maybe have a couple friends over, and – assuming we stay up late enough – hopefully get a glimpse of the fireworks display over the Thames from our balcony.

Whatever you have planned for New Years Eve, and Dawnise and I wish you a safe and joyous one, and hope your 2020 gets off to a fantastic start.

Hey (old guys)! Does this still work?

After a brief (ok, six years) hiatus, I’ve resurrected my blog. As was the case in the long-long ago when I first set it up, I can’t promise I’ll say anything even remotely noteworthy.

The primary catalyst was wanting a place to archive a series of updates I’ve been sending over the past several months about our experience moving to and living in London – which you can find categorized under “London Calling.”

I also have the old Movable Type database, containing all my ramblings between 2004 and 2013. I’m manually migrating selected entries forward, categorized as “Selected Back Issues.”

Finally, before quitting Facebook in 2018 I downloaded all my data. If and as I find things worth preserving, they’ll be categorized as “Facebook Reprints.”

Happy reading.

Crazy Schemes and Questionable Decisions

Last Friday, December 20th, marked half a year in the UK.  And the next day marked our 23 wedding anniversary.  We marked our anniversary on Friday evening with the always-excellent Beef Wellington for two in the dining room of the Goring hotel.  It was a brief moment of calm in an otherwise hectic December, and the evening before my sister, brother-in-law, and niece arrived for the holiday.

The balance of December has been chocked full of stuff.  We even managed to squeeze in Christmas Tea at the Ritz – something Dawnise has literally wanted to do for years.

To rewind a bit… Just after Alfred & Jodie left London for New Zealand, some friends from Luxembourg arrived in London.  We used their five year old daughter as a good reason to experience the particularly British Christmas tradition of Pantomime before they left for the continent and Dawnise and I headed to NY for a weekend.

A weekend in NY?  Who’s crazy idea was that?

It all started ‘cause ‘Nise was going to end the year just shy of status next year, and we were talking about where we could go to get her the last couple thousand miles she needed.  I’d been saying for some years that Dawnise needed to visit NY around Christmas, but since we’ve been “over here” around the holidays for the past several years we hadn’t ever made it happen.  When to my surprise I found inexpensive tickets from London to JFK we overlooked – as in failed to even consider – the duration of the flights (aside: it’s nearly as long from London to NY as it is from London to Seattle – spherical distance is weird) and booked tickets and a hotel in midtown.

We arrived mid-day on Friday and spent the weekend walking around NY.  Christmas markets, Central Park, Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Center, shop windows on 5th Ave – and even managed to meet up with friends for lunch.  Our Sunday afternoon departure got us back to London early Monday, and I was only slightly later than normal arriving at work.

If that seems a bit mad, well, it was – and at some point during the weekend we started toasting to “crazy schemes and questionable decisions.”  Once said, it stuck, and we invoked it frequently while wandering the length and width of Manhattan in freezing cold (but dry) temperatures.
It was exhausting.

And really good fun.

Before we had cooked up the idea for the NY trip, we had planned a weekend Christmas market getaway to Belgium (Bruges and Ghent) with good friends.  When the French rail strike caused Eurostar to cancel our train two days before the trip, we manage to redirect to a weekend in Bath and Oxford.  Props to Airbnb for graciously handling the refund, and to the grumpy but efficient woman at the national rail counter who got us confusing group rates tickets from London to Bath to Oxford to London.  The Bath downtown was Christmas market-tastic, and we did our best to drink enough gluhwein to pretend we were on the contingent.  The Oxford market was smaller but it, and the city, were lovely – and we got incredibly lucky with the weather – a cold dry weekend.

The weather continued to cooperate, and Monday evening – far later than we would have normally – we had the experience of buying a Christmas tree and walking it home, over my shoulder, through central London.  The kilted fellow who sold it to us gave Dawnise a discount for taking a tree that had lost a bit of its crown in transit.  He likely thinks he got rid of an unwanted tree – Dawnise saw it as a way to get the charlie brown tree she wanted at a discount.

I love win-win situations.

That just about catches us up.  My sister, brother-in-law and niece arrived on Saturday, and we spent the first couple days wandering around the city.  Unfortunately the cold Dawnise had been trying to fight got the better of her, and much to her chagrin and frustration we skipped our traditional Christmas eve cocktails at the Ritz.  It was really only through the miracle of modern medicine (Dayquil) that Dawnise managed to help cook a proper Christmas lunch for 7.

Boxing day has been punctuated by bouts of heavy wind and rain, but that didn’t stop our guests from wandering out in the mid afternoon to see more sights.  I imagine when they return it’ll be time for a bit of tea and a reprise of Christmas dinner.  They head back to the states the morning of New Years eve – plans between now and then are sketchy, but I’m confident a good time will be had.

To everyone reading this – we hope your holidays are full of cheer and laughter, and we wish you the very best in the start of the new year.

Cheers. 

Incalculably lucky

In August of 2005 I got an email that would turn out to change everything.

It was from a recruiter, who’d found my resume online, asking if I was interested in talking to a small game company.  Nine months later began what would turn out to be over a decade of working with a remarkable group of people.  But that’s a story some of you already know, and for those that don’t it’ll be a story for another time.

I don’t remember first meeting Alfred, but I do remember meeting his wife, Jodie and their newborn daughter when she was brought into the office for a first visit.  I had no idea in those early days that Dawnise and I would become so close to them.

Alfred and I found working together to be fun and effective – his optimism and willingness to “just try it” being a great counter-balance to my skepticism and desire to understand “the whole journey” before setting course.  I could tell you all the reasons it wouldn’t work, and Alfred would start doing it anyway.

We and our spouses found mutual interests outside work, and started spending evenings together for dinner and games.  Dawnise babysat their daughter while they were at hospital having their second, and again when they had their second son.  We started traditions – like the annual bacon party that started when Dawnise and Alfred mused over burgers made entirely of bacon, which lead to the purchase of a meat grinder, and to bacon burgers so good we tried for years to improve on them, or even reproduce the first years’ success.

When my sister moved to Seattle, we dragged her with us to meet them, and it wasn’t long before her then-boyfriend-then-fiance-now-husband got roped in as well.  Alfred likes to cook, and we love to eat – it was a perfect match.

When Dawnise and I moved to Luxembourg, we visited with them when we were back in Seattle.  And in the years after we moved back and downsized into an urban dwelling Alfred & Jodie hosted our annual ice cream social in their kid-friendly backyard in the Seattle suburbs.

They were undoubtedly our closest friends in Seattle over those 15 years.

It could just be me, but I’ve found making friends as an adult is tricky.  And making close friends… Well, tricky doesn’t even start to cover it.

When Dawnise and I were readying to move to London we figured we’d visit while we were here, and then we’d pick up where we left off when we were back in Seattle.  

Turns out we were half right.

As we were prepping for the move to London, Alfred and Jodie let us in on the secret that they’d decided to leave Seattle and move back to the other side of the world.  Having come to Seattle from Australia, they’d decided to move to New Zealand, and planned to leave Seattle before the end of the year.

So a month or so back the family packed up and left for a multi-week “farewell to America” tour. Dawnise joined them in Florida for a week at Disney World and came home just before the entire clan landed in the UK for a two week stay.

While they were in London we met up for dinner, hung out with the kids, and hosted them at our flat for American Thanksgiving.  (Side note: Dawnise absolutely nailed cooking for 10 people out of that shoe-box sized oven.). The next day we met for dinner at a pub near their Airbnb, went back to their place to chat, and say farewell.  The following day they were flying to Auckland via Hong Kong.

As we left, and Dawnise and I walked back to the tube, we tried to focus on being excited for them, on their new adventure, and ignore the feelings of loss tugging at us.

Make no mistake, we are excited for them.  And despite the utterly ridiculous time in transit, we’ll go visit once they’re settled.

But being excited doesn’t mean for a second we’re going to miss them any less.