Ian Westcott's Barbarian Blog

Another Year, Another Vacation

ianw@barbariangroup.com(Ian Westcott) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:42:43 -0400

As you may recall from last year, when I go on vacation I like to take a lot of pictures. And then when I get back, I am usually a bit overwhelmed by all the pictures I’ve taken and it takes me a while to go through them all. So in the meantime I make and post a big giant index print so as to give people a sense of what I’m up against.

This year I went to a wedding in Fredericksburg, TX, which also gave my lady and I some time to hang out in Austin, which is a cool town. Then we caught Amtrak’s Texas Eagle to Chicago (a 26 hour train), then we caught the Empire Builder to Portland (a 48-hour train), then we caught the Cascades to Seattle and eventually flew home. We spent about a day in each city, and more than 75 hours on trains. It was awesome.

I took 1,777 pictures, and made some hefty modifications to the RMagick script that processes them into what you see below. It still needs some more optimization for memory usage, plus I need to account for my camera’s choice 3 different aspect ratios – right now the script just squeezes pics that aren’t 16:9.

Naturally, the highlights from the above are coming soon to my Flickr page.

Upgrades!

ianw@barbariangroup.com(Ian Westcott) — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:53:53 -0400

Coming in at 7am to upgrade firewalls makes me punchy.

Catch Some Plague

ianw@barbariangroup.com(Ian Westcott) — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:46:25 -0400

Brief webcomic plug: Along with the ubiquitous XKCD and Achewood, one of my favorite comics these days is John Campbell’s Pictures for Sad Children.

His strips are pretty much always brilliant, especially this recent one about the swine flu media pandemic. Click through the teaser panel below for the full strip, and do check out his other comics if you haven’t already.

The ISS Is Okay!

ianw@barbariangroup.com(Ian Westcott) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:17:26 -0400

Another reason why I love the Internet:

At about 12:30 this afternoon Ryan mentioned that the International Space Station was in danger of being struck by some debris from the recent satellite collision, and that the astronauts inside had evacuated to a small spacecraft attached to the station. A quick Google News search turned up only a few short articles which noted that the potential impact was estimated to happen at 12:39pm.

Filled with morbid curiosity, I opened up NASA’s live feed from the space station, which was nothing but dead air at the time, and left it open in a background tab. A few minutes later I noticed some chatter in my headphones. Here’s what I heard:

ISS: “We understand we cleared, plese tell us how to progress back to the USOS”
Houston: “We’re all very happy that the TCA has passed with no impact, that’s great news. The steps you’ll need to perform is step 4.1 and 4.2 of the same procedure, 2.815.”
ISS: “Hey Kathy, you’ll never guess what, we don’t have the [manual] handy with us. Since you’ve trained us yourself, why don’t you tell us what those steps say and we’ll start to execute them until we can get inside.”

The important lesson here, of course, is that when you evacuate your spacecraft, you should remember to keep a copy of the instructions handy. Also, don’t forget your towel.

Transit Rant: Toll The Bridges!

ianw@barbariangroup.com(Ian Westcott) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:59:18 -0500

I don’t post about it much, but most Barbarians know me as a transit nerd, and anyone who follows the news in New York probably knows that the MTA is facing a $2 billion budget shortfall that can only be resolved through state legislation. Many months ago a commission was formed to figure out what to do, and their recommendations—which include tolling all bridges on the East and Harlem rivers—are now being ~~mulled over~~ bickered about by the legislature. On Monday, the state senate launched a website inviting the public to comment on what they think should be done. Below are my comments.

First: The MTA’s budget gap was caused as much—if not moreso—by the dropoff in real estate sales as what this site’s introduction refers to as “mismanagement and fiscal irresponsibility”. What would be truly irresponsible is to deny the MTA the stable funding stream they need in order to continue to safely operate and improve the system.

Second: Outer-borough politicians need to stop making up facts about “low income families” being harmed by the bridge tolling proposals. Lower income families don’t drive! They ride the subways and buses, and letting the MTA falter will harm them far more than tolling the bridges. Studies have shown that the overwhelming majority of outer-borough residents who commute into Manhattan use public transit, and that those who do drive earn almost twice as much on average than those who use other means. But please don’t take my word for it—take the time to research the real facts when evaluating alternatives, and avoid believing the self-serving fabrications that are being dressed up and passed around as facts.

Third: This city owes no favors to automobiles. Our capital improvement projects have favored cars over transit for the last 50 years and our quality of life has only suffered as a result. Toll the bridges! Make the tolls twice that of the subway fares, use the money to build a better transit system, and you’ll give people double the incentive to use it.

We absolutely need an MTA that is well-managed and fiscally responsible, but first we need an MTA that is properly funded. Let’s focus on keeping it running before we start talking about how to make it better.