Amazon.com knew I was pregnant before my mother

All it took was a purchase of one nursing bra and Amazon began flooding me with advertisements for pregnancy and baby-related products.  Some people find this kind of targeted advertising convenient.  I find it invasive and annoying.  I don't even mind it if I'm outright searching for something and they show me related products, but now whatever I'm doing in Amazon, I'm bombarded with suggestions on what I might want for my breasts, nether region or yet-to-be-born baby.

With the "convenience" that comes with having your every digital move catalogued and analyzed, we lose a significant amount of privacy.  Today it's my own view of Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. that's affected by my purchases, searches and comments; what of the day when Amazon starts recommending to my friends and family viewing my Wish List that I might appreciate some nursing pads or stretch mark cream?  And if you think they won't, you're taking the concept of "corporations are people too, my friend" too seriously.  I'm sure there are plenty of Amazon employees and even executives who would oppose such tactics, but ultimately it's the bottom-line that will drive such decisions; after all it's their legal obligation to their shareholders to scrabble for every dime they can.

I quit Facebook the day I commented that I was going to Boston and started getting advertisements for Boston restaurants and events in my sidebar.  I knew that day was coming though and had always been conscientious of what I posted there.  I don't think people, particularly young people, are always that aware.  Once it's online, assume it's there forever.  Go ahead and delete or close your account thinking that's wiped it out, it's still on some server somewhere.

Think Facebook won't turn over a log of your full history (deleted or not) to a government intelligence agency if asked, even without a warrant?  Did you think the same thing about phone companies before the Bush administration made it clear that saying the word "terrorist" absolves both the government and telecommunications companies of having to adhere to any laws, right down to the very Constitution they supposedly hold so dear?  And it's not just the government you have to worry about, Facebook has already "accidentally" revealed what was supposed to be private information of users to third-party application developers when those users installed their apps.

Whatever privacy scandals we hear about related to social media and search engines (try googling "Google Germany Privacy" for some insight on how they push the boundaries) is only what they've been caught doing and assuredly just the tip of the iceburg, and advances in technology and the evolution of artificial intelligence will bring about privacy breaches we can't even yet fathom.  It's a strange, new world we live in.

There is a bit of "turnaround is fair play" going on in the world though.  The same companies that push the boundaries of the trust we put in them with our personal data have put their own trust in the government and companies of China as they use factories there for manufacturing and setup branch offices.  China doesn't have the same ideas about intellectual property as we do.  Companies have found themselves victim to corporate espionage, stealing and recreation of their designs and even disturbingly finding monitoring devices built into electronics that were not in the design.  The Chinese government offers lip services to such breaches, but rarely takes any action on the matter.  Be patriotic and come back to the USA guys; we may expect living wages and safe, non-toxic work environments, but at least you can have us arrested and sue us if we steal from or sabotage you.

Zoo Life- The End

My stint as a docent at the Prospect Park Zoo came to an end a few months back and I thought I'd take a moment to talk about why.  Partly just for the irony of it; you'll see what I mean.

Here's how the story began, but not why I ultimately quit.  I was part of the animal handling program there.  This had been going on for a number of years; docents who had gone through training and been certified were able to present animals to the public during tours and scheduled presentations on  weekends.  Not all of the zoo animals mind you, only ones the animal keepers had designated as tractable based on species and the individual, like chinchillas, chickens and some snake and lizard species.  It was a rewarding program for the docents and a nice chance for the public to get up-close-and-personal with some of the animals, including a chance to touch them.

Rather suddenly, the program was ended.  To my knowledge, there was no unfortunate incident that brought this on, and that's the kind of rumor that spreads pretty quickly.  This seemed more like a policy decision from the managerial level, probably from someone new to the zoo who was worried about liability.  That's a guess though, we were just told that the program was no more.  I was disappointed, but also recognized that I was just a volunteer there and as such didn't have any say in policy.  Some of the other docents took it a lot harder, there were meetings (including tearful pleas) and emails and petitions on the web to appeal the end of the program.  Frankly, it was all a little melodramatic for my tastes.

At this point though, I'm still a loyal volunteer and staying out of the fray.  I even received a call from the NY Post (blech) on the matter and had nothing but good things to say about the zoo.  Until the day I was informed that a new condition of being a volunteer was that I had to sign an agreement saying that I would never make any public (via media, Facebook, email or however) negative statements about the zoo.  Excuse me?  I had no problem with restrictions about what I could say while I was at the zoo acting as a representative, but trying to restrict my free speech as an individual outside of the zoo?  That was unacceptable to me.  If I was an employee, it would be illegal to require that of me; we have whistleblower protection laws in this country for that.  If they did ask their employees to sign the same agreement, I hope the illegality of it comes back to bite them in the ass later.

I don't like it when people try to inappropriately assert authority over me, or anyone.  People who do so are generally bad human beings even beyond their pathetic little power grabs.  Being the CEO of my own company has made me rather sensitive to it.  So told them I wouldn't sign and why and left the zoo on my final day of volunteering sniffling as I did so.  I really did enjoy my time there until some asshole  who didn't even have the courage to identify themselves came along and ruined it for me.  God I hate having principles sometimes.

Happy Terrace Garden Time

In looking back on my last two posts, they're a bit preachy and serious; time for something lighter.  This year's garden.  Last year was our first attempt at a garden on our terrace.  This year we had learned our lessons on what plants can take our windy environment and how to best care for the plants we have.  I won't blather on- have I mentioned that when I write an instant messaging widget I'm going to call it Blather? The pictures are more interesting but a quick overview of our crops-

• We upscaled last years upside-down tomatoes in a coconut fiber basket to a bigger basket (16"), and eventually a coconut fiber cover that helps keep the moisture from being blown away.  The roots from the tomatoes grow up into the fiber, it's interesting to peak under.  
• The garlic chives from last year (in the smaller basket where the tomatoes used to be) survived inside for the winter and share the basket with chocolate peppermint, which can be a nice touch in my coffee some mornings.
• There's a golden raspberry bush, which I had never heard of before, but they grow stouter than their red raspberry cousins from my childhood that would be a bit of a monster on our terrace full grown.  
• I bought a kumquat tree last fall and we had it inside for the winter.  It had kumquats when I purchased it, which we consumed over the winter, so this is the first time I get to see them growing from flowers.
• Carnival blend carrots, which will grow as purple, red, white, yellow and orange.
• Hot cherry peppers, which have turned out to be very tolerant to the wind.
• Strawberries in an upside-down commercial bag, hung inside of a reclaimed old-school metal aquarium platform.
• In the earlier pictures is a venus flytrap, which provided garden justice to a couple of plant-eating pests, but sadly now needs to be replaced.  

Late May, the Early Days

Overview of almost everything

You can see one kumquat here, it held on since last fall when I bought the tree

Top-down view into the raspberry water bottle / greenhouse. Wasn't it cute?

Mid-June, the flowering begins (as do excited visits from bees)

And if you look just above the basket in the center, the Empire State Building.  Much better in person

Once the raspberry outgrew it, the hot cherry pepper plant spent some time in the greenhouse

The first of the tomato flowers

Rokku enjoys the garden as well

 Over time, we gave all of the plants watering spikes with their own supply of water, it got them through the hot, windy days of July while still yielding us plenty of fruits and veggies to eat.

Miscellaneous

For awhile, the venus flytrap was magical at night.  The hope was to attract bugs.

In the day, our sentry bee stood guard

 The fruiting

Isn't it beautiful?

Rokku always gets first dibs

Except on the hot peppers

Yay!

The kumquat begins to flower

The mint expands outwards

August

We've had a few tomato, garlic chive and hot cherry pepper meals from our garden at this point.

The golden raspberry has a decent number of flowers now

Little baby kumquats!

And Rokku heads off into the sunset

If you say "social media" just one more time!

As a tangentially related aside to the following rant- I'm really sick of the high percentage of "experts" I see on TV brought on to talk to me about technology, though they have zero background actually working in technology themselves.  And I'm talking about working in a capacity that creates technology, not just that they've used technology to blog or tweet before, or that they had an idea that they then hired actual technical people to implement for them.

It's too much with the social media.  Social media is just one small part of a larger culture of technology, and frankly not as earth-shaking as our "experts" would have us believe.  And if you don't believe that, go check the price of Facebook's stock.  It hardly even matters when you read this, that will likely hold true. And this is a company that gets non-stop, 24-hour, free advertising on television, radio, web sites, business cards... I could go on for awhile here.  But still you can't gain any traction in the market?

The only thing that surprised me about the Facebook stock plummet was how quickly it happened. I figured the bubble would hold for at least a couple months after the IPO. But despite the hype around the launch, corporations, and in particular publicly-owned corporations, are about profit and the Instagram purchase was just one of many cracks in the facade of Facebook's potential profitability.  Which reminds me, you should really check out The State of the Web, Spring 2012 on The Oatmeal.

But I digress, the whole Facebook thing has been nauseating and really worth an entry of it's own, but at the heart of the problem is the over-inflated sense of importance of social media in general.  Social media has it's place and people have found ingenious ways to make use of it.  But it's not the end-all, be-all of the evolution of human technology.  And let's not ignore how many relationships and I'm sure even lives have been destroyed with the help of social media.

Are you an organization struggling to figure out how to employ social media?  Maybe you don't have to; maybe there are other tools you should be investing in altogether.  Social media has become the hammer, and now everything is a nail.  As a consultant offering software development services, I've gotten some strange requests related to social media.  The funniest one was an organization who provides services to people with involvement in the criminal justice system asking if I could set up Facebook accounts for all of their clients that could be controlled and accessed by the organization.  Um, no, and more importantly, why on earth would you want to do that?

Oh yeah, and social media is not new.  I'm not sure how people have been convinced of this, but I'm sure everyone involved in the early development of Bulletin Board Systems in the late 1970s and early 80s cringes when they hear how "revolutionary" this all is.

You know it's bad when you forget about chocolate

A week ago I bought myself a dark chocolate bar.  It was very much an impulse buy one morning in the midst of the Client Cutover From Hell.  I slipped that bar of chocolate into my purse... and today I remember it's there.  That chocolate bar that I had a week ago decided might give some brief chemical reprieve.  And now as I sit at the tail-end of the Client Cutover From Hell, I celebrate with my chocolate.  It really tells you more about this week than much else I could say.  And yet I will.

I have a few gripes after going through this process.  These are things I have long been sick of but now that they've become the cause of much sleep deprivation, I therefore declare war on....

• Crap software companies that over-charge non-profits with promises of technology like you haven't seen since the mid-90s.  I'm looking at you, Convio Luminate!  This I think is worth a post in and of itself.
• Crap IT support who don't have any clue what they're doing. Some of my difficulties ended up being the result of having to reverse engineer what turned out to be a completely asinine domain configuration by this organization's IT support consultant.  They've already expressed dissatisfaction with this guy, and I'm going to recommend that they drop him altogether.
• Visualforce reRenders.  I used to think it was me, that there were just nuances to reRendering in Visualforce that I was missing.  And while I'm sure that is the case at times, I'm now also quite sure that the way reRender works in Visualforce can be just plain inconsistent.  I discovered in this project that pages that I wrote months ago that were working perfectly fine, now had to re-written because reRenders which previously worked no longer did.  My fellow developer and contractor has found the same thing and has taken to using a third-party Javascript to do the reRenders in many scenarious.  I'm with her (yup, another female developer!)

Random Book and Movie Reviews

Movies
Contagion- I told you if you left Gwyneth Paltrow to her own devices long enough that something like this would happen.  I liked this movie, though it just re-focused me on my fear of the impending plague.  The characters were well written and performed and it kept me engaged, unlike...

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- This is a movie of old white men looking at each other awkwardly and staring across rooms and out windows.  Every once in awhile a woman will look across a room with an expectant dismay on her face.  The men never seem to expect anything until it's too late and unfortunately it's on them who we focus.  The time jumps were confusing and each scene I had to check for grey hairs to get an idea of when it was.  There was a slew of scenes with a character who had been shot earlier that I assumed were flashbacks but it turned out he just hadn't died. I guess Gary Oldman delivered the 10 or so lines he had really well, but mostly he just stared.  If you couldn't tell already, I was not as enamored with this movie as the critics.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes- The writers spent time endearing the apes to me, but there was no need; I was with them from the beginning.  Get 'em, gorilla!  Along those same lines, we were flipping through the channels the other day and happened upon a scene at a bull fight of a bull jumping into the stands of people who had come to watch him be tortured.  Havoc was wreaked. Fair play to the bull. 

Book
Pym, A Novel by Mat Johnson- It's hard for a book that goes into the realm of complete implausibility to fully engage me the way this one did.  The main character, formerly a professor of African American studies, becomes convinced that the novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, by Edgar Allen Poe is actually based on a true story and sets off to prove it, an adventure that eventually lands him in Antartica.  It's a very entertaining read, I recommend it.

Salesforce general sentiments

Right now my business is based almost exclusively on developing on the Salesforce.com platform, but I'm not one of those Marc Benioff idolizing, Salesforce can do no wrong type of people (those people are annoying).  I think Salesforce has done a good job of creating an extensible CRM that allows for non-technical people to customize it up to a point, and developers to customize it beyond that point.

For awhile, the supposed plan for Salesforce was to become a true platform- they handle the storage and maintenance and provide the framework on which everyone could build or install pre-built applications.  Included in that pitch was the statement that they wouldn't build enhancements specific to industry verticals or job functions, that would be left to the customers and third-party developers.  Good bye Salesforce.com, hello Force.com.  I liked this plan. 

This is clearly no longer the plan.  Salesforce continues to build functionality for sales and other verticals, and has gone the Microsofty route of acquiring companies who have built Salesforce solutions and incorporating those solutions into the platform.  This plan I don't like for the same reason I never cared for Microsoft doing it.  Trying to incorporate software into a platform that was not specifically engineered to be incorporated creates complexities (i.e. opportunities for bugs) and inefficiencies that could have been avoided by engineering something from the ground up to actually be a part of the platform.  It's a big part (though not the only reason) of why Windows is the giant bloated piece of crap that is today.  Microsoft has managed to prosper despite this by having a strong foothold in the market, particularly corporate sector of the market, and because computers have progressed to be able to handle the bloatiness of Windows and still function. 

As of late, we've seen some instability in the Salesforce sandbox environment. There was that week this past fall where one of the sandboxes was dead to the world, and just last night the entire sandbox environment, in North America anyway, was hiccuping.  Do I know for sure that these glitches were the result of the way they've expanded the platform?  Absolutely not.  But they were no real surprise to me when they hit and I suspect we'll see more; it's as hard for Salesforce to avoid as a painfully long boot-up time is for MS Windows.  Be careful there Icarus, your wings are looking a little gooey.

Zoo Life - Patricio

Each week I volunteer half a day at the Prospect Park Zoo.  Anyone familiar with my background won't be surprised by this.  Spending time regularly at the zoo provides a unique opportunity to become familiar with the animals in ways that occasional visitors can't.  The amount of time alone makes it more likely to witness telling incidents, and some animals will become familiar with you and interact in ways they won't with strangers.

I suspect that any volunteer at the PPZ has stories related to Patricio, the Cape Barren Goose.  Patricio resides in the Australian walkabout, which means he's free to roam about with zoo visitors along with the wallabies and kangaroo.  Well, usually anyway.  Unlike his would-be mate Ethel who keeps herself hidden most of the time, Patricio spends his day right on the walking trail, usually at the side of the zoo employee or volunteer charged with minding the area.  Just about the only time we see Ethel is when she comes out to give Patricio a piece of her mind when he's acting up and honking.  Ethel is the only one Patricio defers to, and he'll skitter away nervously when she comes running at him.

Patricio

Some days when I'm with him, Patricio will stay right by my side, reaching out to nip at my coat or shoelaces occasionally when I'm not looking.  When he's in a mood, he may decide he'd rather run around with a group of schoolchildren.  Ever see a child panick in fear that they're being chased by a wild goose?  Nothing excites Patricio more- to him it's just a part of the game, while children squeal in terror that they're about to be mauled.  The walkabout has a double-door system to enter, and signs warn visitors to keep only one door open at a time.  This did not stop Patricio from wandering out behind a group of school children one day, following them down the path towards the porcupines before anyone took notice and alerted staff.

Patricio Sneaks Up on Me

Such incidents prompted the animal keepers to relegate Patricio to a fenced in area at the back of the walkabout for a few weeks this fall.  To Patricio, this was jail.  He did not get along with his fellow residents, a noisy flock of guinea fowl and I often saw him charging angrily at them or a squirrel who had wandered in for some free zoo food.  Other times I'd see him practicing his escape.  He'd stretch his wings out to his sides, look in front of himself determinedly and waddle forward as quickly as he could, certain that this would be the time he'd break into flight (I believe his wings are clipped).  It's a bittersweet episode to witness.

I was happy when Patricio was released back into the walkabout proper.  The wallabies are adorable and interesting to watch, but spend most of their time hidden as does the kangaroo, who in her old age is more interested in finding a quiet place to nap.  Patricio is a handful, but in the end he's harmless and he keeps things interesting.

How did I miss Moonraker?

An aside- according to Michele Bachman in the debate last night, we need to "legalize American energy".  Here, here!

How have I not seen Moonraker yet?  This shall be resolved tonight.  In the cottage my family rented over the summer, there was a poster for this movie and I hadn't even realize it existed.  From a review: "My favorite part: when the astronauts get killed in this zero-G environment, they sometimes start falling, as if their willpower alone had been holding them up." He wrestles a snake in the water, has a speed boat chase with gunfire, the excitement seemingly never ends in this epic trailer:

Which reminds me, I completely forgot "Bond Villains" from my list of human(oids) for whose demise I cheer.  Reactions from viewing this movie to come...

Update: Now that I've seen it, I really can't believe I missed that movie, it is a classic.  Don't get me wrong, the plot was disjointed and the dialogue often ridiculous (hilariously so).  But really it gave me exactly what I want from a Bond movie- a series of implausible adventures seeking/fighting with over-the-top villains.  There was not one but two high speed boat chases, one in Venice which ended with Bond showing a complete disregard for public safety by speeding through crowded plazas in a gondola equipped with a hovercraft skirt.  There were sky diving fight scenes, aerial tramway fights, the fight with a giant snake, fights in space, the excitement was just barely broken up with quippy comments between Bond and sexy women and Bond and giant-headed villains.  Oh, and his main squeeze in the flick is actually named Dr. Goodhead.  Yeah, seriously.  If you haven't seen it, or haven't seen it since you were a kid, I highly recommend it.

Not being an asshole wins the race...

Having a tortoise as a pet, I often think of the Tortoise and the Hare fable.  The sum up of that story is "slow and steady wins the race".  The tortoise didn't win because he was slow and steady, he won because that hare was an asshole.  To me, that's a much more important lesson than slow and steady- being an asshole can bite you in the ass.  And that's exactly how you should explain that to your children.  I only wish that were a more predictable outcome. 

My tortoise is very cute; he even likes to snuggle with me-

Still don't think he's cute?  How about this?

What I've really learned from Rokku is determination.  That boy will not give up.  When I take him out on the terrace, 7 flights up, he sometimes gets it into his head that he would like climb over the edge and see what's out there.  I've tried to explain to him that that would be suicide.  I pick him up and move him away, he scrambles right back.  The more you pull him away from his perceived destination, the harder he will try to get there.  Rokku, stop burrowing into those electrical cables!  It's admirable if not nerve-wracking, and I love him for it.

Oh how I loves me some zombie violence

I've discussed this on Friendface and with friends, but figured I'd include my thoughts on it here as an insight into the minds of people.  I was originally going to say it was an insight into my mind, but this is one of those commonalities that brings us together as a species.

There are certain movies and books with scenes of brutal violence against humans (or humanoids) to which we are very much drawn, and zombies stories are a prime example.  I'm also always up for some Nasi violence too.  Our lizard brains get a thrill from violence, it's deep within us from millions of years of  evolution as meat eaters and territorial beasts.  But our rational minds tell us that we can't just go around slaying and beating at will (well, some of us anyway).

Zombie and Nasi violence presents us with the rare opportunity to enjoy a healthy dose of violence with the moral quandry removed.  Storytellers have long been aware of this; it's why they go to lengths to build up the evil qualities of a character before presenting us with their gruesome death.  The more they've worked to show you just how evil someone is, the more painful, gory detail you can expect in their last moments.

Here's a list of some human(oid)s for whose demise I will cheer (did I un-dangle that participle correctly?).  I'll admit that it gets a little ethically questionable towards the end.

• Zombies
• Nasis (becoming an over-used antagonist in movies again)
• Khmer Rouge party leaders (an under-used antagonist in movies that I vote to now replace Nasis)
• Aliens plotting the destruction of our planet, as implausible a concept as I find this to be
• Conquistadors
• Serial killers (or single instance killers, depending on the circumstances)
• Child rapists
• Oh, any rapists really
• Followers of Sauron
• Software agents posing as humans in a virtual reality created to control humans and use us as batteries, as implausible a concept as I find that to be
• Anyone who shouts "Death to America!" (hey, I'll be the first to admit our imperfections, but fuck you, man)
• Anyone Dick Cheney has ever trusted to do his dirty work
• Dick Cheney
• Hedge fund managers
• Executives at companies that implement hydrofracking (I've been a little fixated on this lately.  I like water)

And let's be clear, I'm not speaking about this in terms of death penalty legislation, on which I have a completely different stance, or sanctioning rampant murder sprees of people who fit these descriptions, which would put you squarely in the serial killers category.  This is purely regarding the mutilation and death of fictional characters for my entertainment.  But nonetheless, I accept the impact this will have any future runs for office.

Gettin' all meta about my blog

For awhile I've had two blogs going, the long out of date Enlightened Platypus for technical posts and Recipes of a Platypus.  I also had a Friendface account to appease my egotistical desire to spout my views off to the world.  I've now shunned Friendface and realized that I might as well merge all of my spoutings into a single blog.  For those of you only interested in my technical posts, largely Salesforce related these days, you can select that tab above.  Same for those of you interested in what I'm cooking these days, the Recipes tab is for you.  And for those of you actually, dare I say inexplicably, interested in what I babble on about (hi Mom and Dad!), then Personal is for you. And now the question is, what to do when the day comes that I shun Google?  We shall cross that bridge if and when we get there.

That will be all, carry on about your business.