Concepts in the Paradox

This week I have writer’s block. Enjoy this ‘professional’ grammar error in the mean time.

It’s been a strange day. I went on a walk through the alleys around work to get some fresh air. I encountered a very old Italian woman who stopped me as I was examining an old an decrepit building. She spoke to me in very broken Italian about her feelings on the homeless, the police, and the blank, lifeless alley we were both walking down.

“No good!” she said, not allowing me to talk. Not that it would have mattered, I don’t think she spoke English.

“They sit here and they smoke,” she made a puffing gesture, “cops come and they…” she then motioned as though she was hiding her imaginary smoke.

“The police…”, she paused, looked at me with indirect contempt, “No good.”

“Tourists! No good.”

“Businesses, so few, No good!”

“…they sleep here, pee everywhere,” I noted her duct taped jacket and Muni Fast pass dangling from her neck with a big ‘S’ on it, “No GOOD!”.

She wondered off, continuing her conversation with herself.

“No good”.

But on to the topic at hand: the TL. I stumbled across this blog on TL & 6th street motels. It’s a great way to burn a night if you are into urban decay. Just spectacular.

Has anyone played with Amazon’s S3 and EC2 service? I’ve known about these for a while, but I hadn’t looked at it until now. Basically, it is a system to gain unlimited cpu time and disk storage/transfer. It’s metered, so I’m wondering how the metering compares to a $120/mo colo plan and server?

They use some sort of virtual machine technology that I’m not familiar with. You create an “AMI”, or Amazon Machine Image, which is an encrypted disk image, and upload it to their servers. My mind is scrambling to think what could possibly done with this scenario. Some of the search engine startups in the bay area outsource their real time number crunching here because the infrastructure costs of EC2/S3 is much lower than buying/hiring/managing a physical outlay for servers.

On another topic, I’m doing some research on my block specifically. My interest has sparked a discussion on socketsite. Apparently what is going in across the street is an 81 unit BMR complex, or in English, a 14 story condo building for middle class families. “Affordable housing”. That means I might be able to afford it. :)

I’ve spent most of the night on the computer tonight, which I really don’t like doing. At least I got to watch the sun set out my window while getthing various tasks out of the way. I already spend 8 hours a day in a windowless room in front of a computer, I don’t want to come home and do the same thing.

Read more »

Walking home for lunch I saw that a construction crew is ripping out the insides of the former brothelmassage parlor that is next door. I asked the crew “what’s going in here?” and they told me it is going to be a bar! I don’t know if it’s a just a bar for the Olympic/San Franciscan hotel next door, or if it’ll have it’s own front. I hope it has it’s own front, even if it might be loud for me, because I could just go downstairs to get a drink any time I want!

No DUI, no walking home drunk, I just have to manage to find my own front door some 10 feet away. :)

I haven’t seen notification for a liquor license permit request, so I don’t know if the guy was telling the truth. A bar is going down the street on Ellis, I got the permit notification for that, so these two bars could make my block interesting!

I’m happy that this block is improving, first with the condos going in across the street, second with the old Radioshack/Subway building being rehabbed, and finally with a couple of bars going in. Rumor has it the new condos will have shops in the bottom too!

You must be the change you want to see in the world.
- Mahatma Gandhi

I read this through the window of a shop while taking a leasure walk up Market St. It made me think, “Am I the change in the world I want to see? What is the change in the world I want to see? And if I’m that change, is it really the change I want to see?

It was then that I realized that I am not at all the change I want to see, at least, anymore.

If you are the change in the world you want to see, what is that change?