Curious.Judith

This is the Apple Help message i sent Sunday. They couldn’t have anyone call me back yesterday, and i’ve not had time today. I am watching twitter for iDisk, and i speculate that Apple is changing how iDisk is mirrored, due to the imminent release of some iPhone ap.

This morning the iDisk mirror seems to have changed from a disk image that uses all the allocated space at once to a sparse image. It gave me quite a scare as all my files seemed missing for an hour or so. When i thought to connect via web browser, i deleted all my backups as it seemed my iDisk was just over the 5G of my family pack share.

I rebooted my laptop and now it *seems* everything is back.

in /Volumes/ i see

lrwxr-xr-x   1 blondie  admin    19 Jun 21 11:30 iDisk -> /Volumes/me.username
drwx------  15 blondie  staff  1190 Jun 21 11:30 me.username
drwx------   1 blondie  staff  2048 Jun 19 07:38 me.username-1

df -k shows:

http://idisk.mac.com/me.username/     5212160   901404   4310756    18%    /Volumes/me.username-1
/dev/disk1s2                         5161480   808280   4353200    16%    /Volumes/me.username

QUESTIONS:

1. Did the mirrored iDisk change from a dmg file to a sparse bundle some time in the past year or so? I know under 10.4 the mirror was ~/Library/Mirrors/[random]/[me.username].dmg. There’s

% ls -dl Library/FileSync/0017f2c54835/me.username_iDisk.sparsebundle/
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 login-name  staff  204 Mar 15  2008 Library/FileSync/0017f2c54835/me.username_iDisk.sparsebundle/

2. What is the difference between /Volumes/me.username (iDisk points to this; mountpoint /dev/disk1s2) and /Volumes/me.username-1 (mount point http://idisk.mac.com/me.username/)?

3. What could have caused the view of an empty iDisk i saw earlier? I’m used to the mirror being present when i’m off line. This morning i had a failure to mount because the iDisk could not be reached, and when i did get back online, the iDisk was empty.

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This is a preliminary post about a simple data analysis of JCDL tweets.

At 12:48 pm PDT on Friday 19 June, i ran the command

curl http://search.twitter.com/search.atom\?q=jcdl+OR+jcdl2009\&rpp=100 >\
TweetsJCDL01.xml

iterating until i ran out of tweets, and thus producing five Atom format files of JCDL tweets.

I wrote a simple gawk script (it’s not JCDL specific) which produced the following data files, suitable for visualization at Many Eyes:

AuthorTweetCount.html - see below
Tweets.txt - Tweet text
CleanTweets.txt - Tweets without handles & tags
HandleTweetCount.txt - Count of tweets, replies, retweets, & mentions
Handle_Cited.txt - handle & the handle of a RT'ed user
Handle_Mentioned.txt - handle & any handles mentioned in the tweet
Handle_RepliedTo.txt - handle & the replied to handle
Handle_Epoch.txt  - handle and the tweet timestamp in epoch

The script will be available, for what it’s worth, with a BSD license, which i hope means that it can be improved freely and made far more useful.

Once i confirm the visualizations work, i’ll post about the results, and i’ll also provide the tweets in atom format, the gawk script, the results, and links to the places to play at Many Eyes.

The most preliminary result is below the cut: a list of all the twitter users who had tweets about JCDL or JCDL2009, ranked.

(more…)

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Last year, my extended family exchanged Yule gifts not with each other, but with the world. Our main gift was one joint contribution to Heifer International. The following is my email to the family suggesting an organization for this year’s gift.

Trees for Life is what i’d told [my sister] about. They’re a three star charity with Charity Navigator — with a four star (highest) ranking for efficiency [1]. What brought them down was “Organizational capacity.” [2] Reading what that measures, it seems to describe an undercapitalized organization that could really benefit from receiving a gift.

50 Trees – $50
10 Books – $50
Fuel efficient cook stove – $100
Gift of Moringa Trees – $100

What are Moringa Trees, you ask?

“The leaves are indeed highly nutritious. They contain two times the protein of yogurt, three times the potassium of bananas, four times the calcium of milk, four times the vitamin A of carrots, and seven times the vitamin C of oranges. And these leaves can be easily grown right at people?s doorsteps,” says the web site. Regrettably, no source says “and they taste good, too!” So i searched and found this note

“Although Moringa leaf powder is commonly used to make a sauce and has many uses in India’s natural Ayurvedic medicine, most health professionals and nutritionists are unaware that the young seed pods and seeds (which taste like asparagus), and flowers (which taste like mushrooms) can also be eaten. As a nutritional additive, add two or three spoonfuls of powder to rice, soups and sauces just before serving. Small amounts of leaf powder will not have a marked effect on the taste of the sauce.” — an Indian Export/Import company website

which leads one to be suspicious – “will not have a marked effect on the taste?” What if it did? Further reading turned up

“The trouble is, the leaves taste awful. No one wants to eat them, at least not whole and raw. Professor Crosby’s been experimenting, and he found that making a powder from the leaves and adding that to rice or something is the most palatable way to eat the leaves.” — this blog cites a newspaper article

Still, a complete protein from a plant!

[1] Organizational Efficiency: We assess four key indicators to determine how efficiently and responsibly a charity functions day to day: fundraising efficiency, fundraising expenses, program expenses, and administrative expenses. We issue a rating in each of the four categories, as well as a rating that combines a charity’s performance in all four categories.
[2] Organizational Capacity: We assess three key indicators to determine how well a charity can sustain its efforts over time: average annual growth of primary revenue, average annual growth of program expenses, and working capital ratio. We issue a rating in each category, as well as a rating that combines a charity’s performance in all three categories.

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First lesson today: call the Senate switchboard (202) 224-3121. I may have a stack of letters saying “Feel free to contact my Washington DC staff at (202) 224-3841,” but that number isn’t answered.

I’ve been receiving thanks from my senator over the past six months, thanks for writing about legislation with which i am unfamiliar, or apparently asking for support for things with which i disagree — although this last one, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007 seems to align to my values.

I called because it seems the two faxes i’ve sent my Senator have had little effect. (The text of the first is here.) I still receive thanks for writing letters about things i disagree with: someone out there is using my name and address.

One of the things i discovered this morning is that the “letters” were actually emails from and aol and hotmail address. I wonder if times really have changed, and e-mail to ones representatives counts more than a letter that has to slog through contaminate cleaning. I’d been using FAXes (digitally, of course), but now i wonder if that’s been foolish.

(From my PDF of the first FAX, i see i sent it with my San Francisco address letterhead. Curses.)

I am to expect a call from the system administrator, who appears to be in charge of the contact database.

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I would love to say, “Don’t touch the parks!” but i understand that this budget crisis is significant — no easy solutions. I’m sure there are bureaucratic salaries that could be cut, and so on, but closing parks and then
considering them excess property seems far to far. It’s beyond mortgaging the future.

I couldn’t find much in the short time i had to think and write about this. If anyone else knows more about AB 2392, Excess state land: state park system (introduced by Garcia), please leave a comment.

Following: my hasty note to my representatives via California State Parks Foundation’s form. See more at http://savestateparks.org/.

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Dear Senator Feinstein:

I just received two letters from your office, gently disagreeing about the DREAM act. It is not an area to which I have been paying great attention, but I too am disappointed that it didn’t pass.

I am selfishly more upset that someone apparently used my name and (partial) address, TWICE, to write you with a point of view opposite to my own. I don’t suppose there’s anything that can be done: my name and address are public, and I have no intention of hiding under a rock. Presumably, this was not a personal attack, as I’ve no public statements about the DREAM act or the heartless portrayal in the media of the debate. Perhaps I should. There is an excellent article in a late 2007 issue of Friends Bulletin reflecting on Friends traditional witness against slavery and the economic and justice issues around immigration reform. (http://www.westernquaker.net does not yet have the 2007 issues available online.)

I write to ask your office to deduct two letters from any count you keep about the DREAM act or other immigration issues. They were written under false pretenses. And please count my voice as one in support of acts like the DREAM act, that raise up all people.

I would appreciate a response to this letter.

Sincerely,
Judith E Bush

identity theft

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To “Mr Green” at SierraClub.org:

*Sigh* In your Hummer vs Hybrid column, you end up briefly comparing the Prius gas milage to the Corolla. Could you evaluate how much more particulate matter, asthma triggers and what not the Corolla emits compared to the SULEV certified Prius? The Prius isn’t just about good gas milage, it’s CLEANER. While CO2 and greenhouse gas reduction are clearly top of mind emission issues, the growing incidence of asthma is a human measure of other emission issues from gas powered vehicles.

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I tend not to proclaim much about myself. Just like i’m not inclined to have “favorites,” there are too many dimensions of identity for me to pick one or two and claim those. However, it’s National Coming Out Day, and i’m concerned about civil rights and the US Congress. I’ll take this as an occasion to point out that I’m queer/bi (if i have to choose a label), and my spouse is transgendered. There are plenty of states where she has no protections against discrimination based on her transgendered status. Currently, Congress is considering an employment rights act, called ENDA. There has recently been an effort to change the language of the bill so that it only protects folks based on who they prefer to have sex with *not* on how they express their gender. Theoretically, the bill will pass more easily by leaving a group at more risk behind. There’s good discussion here at the transworkplace blog. I’ve written my representatives and lobbied for a bill with language that will include the diversity of human expression. I’ll share my letter to Anna Eshoo here:

Dear Representative Eshoo:

I recognize that you are not on the committee involved with the ENDA legislation, but
I must share these concerns. The following article by Dr. Weiss captures my ethical and
philosophi cal concerns about leaving transfolk out of the ENDA bill. My personal concern
is my spouse of fifteen years. I watched her wrestle with her identity for over a decade. She
could be open with me but dared not show that side of herself to the world. She tried
sharing with some friends for a while, but eventually decided it was too hard and tried to
completel y repress her sense of her gender identity so that she would fit in with the world’s
expectations of her.

It doesn’ t work. She was slowly dying.

With encouragement to do what she needed to do to be authentic, to be herself, she’s
started down the path of transition. Even with support from her family and with my
financial support, this is a hard and painful process. Emotional pain, physical pain: but at the
same time, beautiful. When a person is able to shed the shackles of external expectati on and
be themselves, the joy and beauty of the authentic self blossoms. I’ve been honor ed to be
part of my spouse’s transition.

I’ve experienced gender-based discrimination myself. I know ENDA is not magic and
will not smooth the way for my spouse and others like her, but I also know how valuable it
is to have legal support that ones’ fundamental self is not cause for discrimination. Please
don’ t leave my spouse and the many others outside of this legislation.

Sincerely,

Judith E Bush

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Between the heartache of the September 11th anniversary and The International Day of Peace, i’ll be at a number of peace focused events this month. But the most powerful expression of a peaceful way forward in the face of violence is Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP). Using different techniques and strategies than the UN Peacekeepers and with a developing track record of success, the Nonviolent Peaceforce trains a deploys a civilian peaceforce to accompany and intervene in areas of conflict where they have been invited. Currently, their deployment projects include Sri Lanka, Guatemala, and the Philippines, with planning for deployments in Colombia and Uganda.

They can use your support. Consider buying a Peace Bond to invest in the future and share that investment with family and friends.
Nonviolent peaceforce, peace,peace bonds, colombia, sri lanka,international day of peace

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