Concepts in the Paradox

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.

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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?

I went to see Breach with Jason as the major event for the day. Yes, I pried him away from work to go see a movie at the Metreon. I would say Breach is easily an 8, a good plot, some suspense, and unexpected plot twists. After the movie I suckered him into moving my heavy TV onto my fancy new Ikea TV stand.

The front room is starting to look pretty good, I still need to do something about the computer rack, and I am looking at bike racks to get my bikes up and out of the way. Either they’ll go in front of the heater or in front of the kitchen window.

I still need to do my taxes. I keep getting derailed, perhaps the weekend after next will be the magical day to do online filing.

I did little today. I slept in, did some work on getting the apartment closer to comfortable, and did a walk in this very cold and rainy city.

I put up a big book case to absorb all the books that have started to pile up on the floor. I was hoping to throw out some of the smaller book cases I have, but it looks like I’ll need them still. I have too many books! I need to let some of them go, maybe sell them or “loan” them to friends.

I rifled through the San Francisco MLS and noted some of the properties I’ve been eying slipped as much as $95k in price. The market is changing, though still not as fast as I would like. My new employer will pay for loan fees, so that helps. if I buy through Redfin, they’ll give me 3% cash back on my purchase if I get a condo or house. The Odeon is a new development that I’d consider, as well as The Mint Lofts. The time isn’t right though, so I’ll remain in the TL.

I debated going to Poproxx tonight, but I’m already going to NewWave next weekend with Jill and since I got a new job my cash flow situation is dire until my first pay check. Vodka from the corner market is much cheaper anyhow. :)

Lately I’ve been listening to “Snake River Conspiracy” and “Scissor Sisters”, both which were recommended to me by my friend Tim in Reno. Also I’ve been enjoying “Gram Rabbit” and “The Spores”, both of which I saw live for the first time at Poproxx and loved. Finally, I found “Olive” in a rental car love box, which I enjoy, and “Delirium” which I copied from my friend Kara’s CD collection and have since bought everything she sings at Amoeba.

“Is this yours?” a homeless man asked me while I was doing my laundry.

I looked at what he wants holding in his hand, it was 12 pennies.

“Uh, no.” I responded in a very confused tone.

“Are you sure this isn’t yours?” he persisted.

“Uhm, no.” I repeated.

“Cuz if it is yours, you should take it. I’m not gonna take it!” he demanded, obviously not wanting the guilt of taking 12 cents from someone.

“How about this. It is mine, but you can give it to someone on the street?”

And so with that, he gave the twelve cents to the first person who came by, and that person was literally overjoyed with his new gift.

On the way to work this morning, I walked by a young woman who was doing trash duty on Ellis street. This is part of the never ending battle against the trash people throw on the ground around Hallidie Plaza. Usually, trash duty is one of the many selections that a citizen can choose from to work off a citation or jail time. Think, “community service”. This young woman added value to her community, by giving me a warm smile and turning to me to ask a question as I went forward in my day to earn a day’s wages.

“You gotta dollah? I wanna buy a juice.”

And with that, I ignored the young woman and silently thought to myself how much this program offers the community.

Since going part-time vegetarian, I’ve had some awkward food moments. Beyond being called a hippie, as one might expect, I’ve had some food servers give me some interesting interactions:

Yesterday at a Valencia coffee shop:
Me: “I would like the veggie sandwich with hummus instead of mayo.”
Cashier: “Would you like bread with that?”

I thought this was otherwise known as a “salad,” no?

Today in my favorite TL burrito shop (the one that doesn’t make me ill):
Me: “I would like a veggie taco with black beans.”
Cook: …
Me: …
Cook: “For real?!”

January has been an active month, with dead time between events starting to go back to back with things to do.

At work, I’ve ended up diving head first into SAN virtualization. I didn’t want to go this route for a another few months, but we’re evaluating SAN technology, and the research needs to be done quickly. This stuff isn’t as hard as I thought it would be, and in fact it is pretty straight forward. LUNs here, WWNS there, sparse volumes and mirrors over there.

I finally heard back from David Snyder at SPUR, and he’s going to put me in touch with the transportation communications intern there. The idea is for me to do “online advocacy” for transit, something that I’m already knee deep in by nature. We’ll see where things go. SPUR’s membership fee was a whopping $65, but it is for a good cause. These folks seem to know what they are doing.

The car has been up for sale for almost 2 weeks now. I put it up on cars.com for $21750, but the only contacts I’ve gotten are other sales agencies wanting to list my auto for another $50. I hate to lower the price, it is already low compared to other cars for sale in the area, but every month it sits is another possible parking ticket or accident, plus deprecation and the insurance payments I have to make.

Speaking of parking tickets, the two citations I got from DPT came back after I wrote a very polite letter to the them. Their reply? Pay the $100 or find a cop to verify that the tags are current, have him sign off on the tickets, then submit $10 per ticket ($20) for “administrative fees” to have the citations written off. I about flipped my lid when I read that. The DPT brings in $40m a year, so I have little concept of why I must pay fees to have my fine waved. Such is the law, and such is yet another complaint letter for me to write. I’m getting good at writing them these days.

Finally, I went to the MacWorld expo this week. I ended up buying a keyboard cover, 2GB of RAM for my Mac Mini, and laid out the cash for an academic version of Adobe CS2 + Acrobat 8. It’s about time really, I’ve been suffering with The GIMP and I’d like to greatly improve the designs of my various blog sites. Now I have something more to learn, but it’s graphics, so it should be fun!