I am at once saddened and amused.

As I noted on Tuesday, I am leaving my present position to start at USF, and gave notice that morning.

Today, my company announced layoffs… and I’ll be terribly surprised, having already given notice, if I hear one way or the other about whether I’d have been laid off otherwise. I’d like to think that my leaving voluntarily has saved someone else being laid off… and leaving certainly feels better than being laid off myself. From a purely personal perspective, I cannot help but be amused.

The economy here in the valley is certainly a lot better than it was during the bottom of the bust when Kana was having its big rounds of layoffs, and I am not nearly so worried for many of my coworkers as I was for various folks at Kana at the time. Still, these are never a good thing and I’m sad for both my company and for those coworkers who are being let go.

Los Angeles to Fiji $50 R/T

I guess I’m a guest blogger on this site. I went to high school with Nate and still keep in touch. I’m a computer geek who lives in Pittsburgh, PA. Nate asked me to post travel deals and other sites of interest I find, so here’s the first one. Unfortunately it’s no longer bookable, but the amazing part is that people are getting their tickets; usually deals like these are cancelled by the airline.

Los Angeles to Fiji – $50 roundtrip, including taxes and fees

Looked like it was a $0 base fare with the taxes and fees accounting for the $50.

Real estate insanity

They’re In — but Not Home Free: Many Californians have ‘interest-only’ loans. They might be living on borrowed time.

It’s not just first-time buyers who are at risk of payment shock. Miseon and T.G. Kang just sold their town house in San Jose for $625,000 and bought a new home for $1.21 million.

“We paid a premium. We wanted this house. Without an interest-only loan, we couldn’t have afforded it,” said Miseon Kang, a pharmacist. “For five years, our payments will be OK. But after that, they’ll be a problem. My husband and I are concerned.”

Via Atrios

At some point, I really have to track down a copy of Matt’s book that’s apropos to the subject (Shaky Palaces: Homeownership and Social Mobility in Boston’s Suburbanization (Columbia History of Urban Life (Hardcover)), out of print)

Addendum: Loosely apropos, and for lack of a better place to put the link…. Meritocracy in America: Ever higher society, ever harder to ascend

“Nate: The next chapter”

As of this Friday, I’ll be leaving my job at Panta Systems, and after a week off, I’ll be starting in the ITS department at the University of San Francisco.

I’m a little sad to be leaving Panta – they have good people, cool technology, and some very interesting problems to be working on. As for the job at USF, no, it’s not a teaching position (what with an only-90%-finished MS that’s pretty obvious), but it’s too good an opportunity to pass up. Beyond the fact that my title will be the mouthful “Web Programmer/Application Administrator” (or I may have the order of the two halves backwards) I’ll have more on what I’ll be doing there later.

Addendum: Had a good vacation, albeit with a bit of a cold (so no SCUBA diving 🙁 ) — more, along with possible photos, later.

The lack of posts recently…

…has a very simple explanation. First, we had a big deadline at work. And now I’m on vacation. I may drop by with some vacation pictures, or I may not… but I’ll be back to my regularly scheduled procrastination, humor, and political repostings come April 5th.

Until then, and barring the odd vacation photo I may post here, be well.

Cool “round” numbers and the Unix Epoch

Via Lawrence You on the SSRC mailing list:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/17/169200

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday March 17, @01:38PM
from the everyone-make-balloon-animals dept.
initsix writes “Break out your party hats. According to
http://www.onlineconversion.com/unix_time.htm , Unix time is supposed
reach 1111111111 on Fri, 18 Mar 2005 01:58:31 GMT That’s only 1036372537
seconds from 2^31 (ie Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:08 GMT)!!”

i.e. 5:58 PM PST tonight

$ perl -e ‘print scalar localtime(1111111111), “\n”;’
Thu Mar 17 17:58:31 2005

A good trend for Democracy in America

I’m really quite pleased by the trend of politicians posting on blogs; I realize that those on the right will also be doing it, but the ones I’ve seen so far from the center-liberal side of things are refreshing — although I hesitate to use the term “left,” even for such worthies as Senator Feingold.

Case in point: today, Congressman Jim McDermott (D-Washington) posted to the diaries on MyDD a very good discussion of our military situation, and the relation between weak recruiting and a little-publicized but odious provision of the “No Child LeftBehind” Act:

Section 9528, an Orwellian provision that takes money away from any school that denies military recruiters equal status with colleges and prospective employers, plus access to students’ home phone numbers. “Go after the unsuspecting and innocent and those easily impressed” — that seems to be the plan.

Charlie Rangel faced a Korean wartime draft and saw combat. I faced a Vietnam wartime draft and served as a military psychiatrist — deciding which trauma cases got returned to duty status. In the debate leading to this war, we introduced H.R. 163, a bill authorizing a military draft.

I am the last person who wants to see Americans drafted. (We both voted against H.R. 163 later that year.) The whole point was to raise awareness and force the Administation to face this war’s open-ended cost.

It wasn’t until I saw his later points that I realized who he was. Kudos to Congressman McDermott for embracing the new medium, and I sincerely hope that other politicians will follow.

It’s sorta depressing…

To realize just how much my brother is cooler than I am.

Then again, I’ve got my own blessings to count, but other than spending 10 years together with the best girlfriend and wife in the world (Hi Marie 🙂 ) I don’t think I could name 9 others things I’ve done that are coolinteresting enough to interest anyone elseexpect anyone else to want to read through them.

Addendum: Mearls refers to a “10 things I’ve Done and You Haven’t” meme – I guess it’s a LJ thing?

Geez I’m lame – another one of those quizlet things…

I am a d12

You are the rare, the overlooked, yet incredibly useful dodecahedron: the d12. You are a creative, romantic soul. You often act without thinking, but make up for your lack of plans with plenty of heart. You easily solve problems that stump others, but your answers tend to put you into even deeper trouble. You write long, detailed backgrounds for all your characters, and are most likely to dress up as one or get involved in cos-play. You can be silly at times and are easily distracted by your own day dreams, but are at the end of the day you’re someone who can be depended on.

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

And for the record, I have NEVER gotten involved in cos-play or larping. C’mon, tabletop RPG guys have to have SOMEBODY to look down on.