Lantern-bearers and Ada Lovelace

I love the idea of Ada Lovelace day. I’ve known her name since I was maybe nine because my dad had a crush on her. I’ve been thinking about the women who are my technology role models, and the person who floats to the top is Jeanne Kramer Smyth.
Jeanne’s not famous. She’s not a household name. But in her enormous social and professional network (in which she plays a vital node-like role, gathering people and keeping them connected), she is a go-to person for technical advice. She has a voracious appetite for new ways of managing information and connecting people to each other and to the information they need. If anyone has a question about search engine optimization or RSS or piping or blog templates or visualizing information, it’s Jeanne we call.
I became an IT professional by accident, and I still feel quite seat-of-the-pants a lot of the time. Jeanne’s example of how far noodling around can get you has been very inspiring to me. She has traveled the paths, and her light still clings there, tracing the paths for others. She sees possibilities that would never occur to me, but seem obvious once she lays them out. I feel less lost when I’m exploring something new, because of the way she sets out exploring. She is a dear friend, but I’m not sure I’ve ever told her how important she is to me from this technical and professional perspective, so this post is a little tribute to her. She’s my Ada Lovelace Day pick. She blogs at http://www.spellboundblog.com/.

Kindred spirits

Check it out: A jargon-checker called, beautifully, “Bullfighter“.

It just gives me a warm, I’m-not-alone feeling.
I haven’t tried it out yet. I’m just happy someone developed it. And it’s free.

[Postscript, Sept. 2014: It is with deep sadness that I discover the Bullfighter link is broken. It used to be supported by a big consulting firm, but then they dropped it and no-one picked it up, which is a shame. I think the plug-in stopped working circa 2011. The people who wrote the content for the plug-in also wrote this book, which is still available: Why Business People Speak Like Idiots.]

Catching up

Wow, a 6-week blogslack. I blame Facebook.

Couple of things:

Macromediocrity: This bit of sophomory goes straight to the heart of why we started this blog in the first place (remember, it was about American culture rewarding the lowest common denominator). The article I link to above is all happy about the possibilities for independent developers making a living from creating applications for the iPhone. I’m happy about that too. I’m just kind of crestfallen that, given a tool with the tremendous capacity for communication and learning that the iPhone has, people want more than anything for it to make rude noises[1].

More things in heaven and earth [2]:
– Frogs eat bugs. It’s the way of the world. But did you know that there are wasps that eat tadpoles?! (Dragonflies eat tadpoles, too. But somehow I found that less surprising.)
– World’s smallest chameleon! (For some reason this one is in Tokyo, even though they come from Madagascar.)
– Check out the snoutiness! It’s a shrew the size of a rabbit which got discovered last year.

[1] Thanks to Will for the link.
[2] I’ve been watching Life in Cold Blood.

Mmmm, brains.

It’s not what you think.

We had our office holiday lunch today at Bistro d’Oc.[1]
Brains were on special.
I got to say to Johanna, “Do you want to split some brains?” to which she replied, “Yeah, that would be great”–not one of your more usual conversations, I think you’ll agree. (Well, outside the context of a zombie invasion, obviously.)
They were lamb brains with lemon and capers and noisette butter, and they were a fine thing indeed.
Johanna cheerfully admits to suggesting Bistro d’Oc for the holiday lunch “because they serve offal.” I was most impressed that several of our less-culinarily-adventurous coworkers tried a little bit of brains (“Can I taste your brains?”). I don’t think they’ll ever order them on purpose, but they didn’t spit them out or anything. (Hilariously, later in the meal, I did have to spit out a little bit of fig spread. I’m twitchy about figs at the best of times, and I was expecting it to be tapenade. Blick.)

[1] I’m kind of mystified by the online reviews of Bistro d’Oc, many of which are savage. We had a 12-person holiday lunch (reservations for 14, but two couldn’t make it). When we arrived, the room was set up with two tables–one of 6 and one of 8. Our executive director asked the waiter if he could rearrange the tables so we could all sit together. He did so. He recommended gorgeous and inexpensive wines and described them accurately. He knew what went into everything on the menu. It’s a bistro, and it does it well. It’s not a high-end haute cuisine celebrity chef experience, but if you know your charcuterie and succulent cheeses and duck confit, it’s good for what ails you . I feel as though a lot of the reviewers don’t understand what a French bistro is; either they don’t like French food, or they were actually looking for a bar.

New respect for flying rats

Yesterday on my walk I noticed an explosion of pigeon feathers on the lawn of the Ellipse. It wasn’t gory, but it was impressive. Definitely a whole pigeon’s worth. “Huh,” thought I, “I wonder what’s hunting the pigeons?” Red-tail hawk was my first thought. Then mere minutes later as I was crossing the Washington Monument grounds, I had my answer: Two birds came haring into my field of vision, right on top of each other, flying all rickety in what looked like close formation, until one veered off suddenly to safety among a little copse of (I think) old cherry trees, and the other swooped up to take a scanning perch on a much taller tree at the edge of the lawn. Not a red-tail; a peregrine falcon. Very pointy. Wings almost like a seagull at first glance. Knowing that a pigeon can outmaneuver a peregrine in (pretty much) level flight gives me new respect for pigeons.

Eerie.

While taking my pulses this morning, my Chinese doctor asked me if I had a cold. “Mmmaybe,” said I. “Not a cold, I don’t think. Just the sniffles.”
During my lunchtime walk I was meditating cheerfully on the pleasingness of the expression “the sniffles”. All onomatopoeiac and quaint, like “the ague.” Plus it’s fun to say. Sniffles.
Now I’m pretty sure I do have a cold. All kinds of sneezing and nose-blowing and itchy throat. Booooo. But good on him for being able to tell me I had a cold eight hours in advance of me becoming aware of it.