Mubix’s Neighborhood

Stranger things have happened, but not much stranger

I livestream from time to time, usually to show off my Karaoke evenings, but not always. Last night, during a non-Karaoke livestream session, something rather remarkable happened.

I had been interacting with the 15 or so people in the chat room in a typical way: "any questions about Perl, Smalltalk, FLOSS Weekly, etc?", and trying to keep everyone at least a bit amused at my typing and on-screen presentation.

For grins, I typed "A/S/L/O" into the chat room. This is a silly variation on the old "A/S/L" of the "hook-up" chats where people want to know the Age and Sex and Location of everyone else. I explained that my fourth letter referred to "Operating System", and people obliged.

Two of my friends happened to be in the chat. (I'll use a fake name in here just in case they don't want blame or credit for what happened next.)

I've known "Sam" for about 15 years from various professional engagements I've had. He lives in the LA area, and I got to hang out with him recently on a trip there. His response in the chat room was something like "41 / Male / Los Angeles / Linux" followed by "but originally from Podunk, PA".

"Diane" and I have interacted only over the past 18 months or so. I know her from chatrooms related to my podcasting work. I've never met her, although she lives in the San Francisco Bay area. She chatted in as "41 / Female / San Francisco / Mac OS", and I kidded her about still running OS9. She quickly changed it to "OSX".

But then Diane said "Hey, I'm also from near Podunk, PA".

Both Sam and Diane started comparing notes. After a few minutes, they realized...

... they were in the same graduating class in high school and knew each other.

Here's the email Sam sent me shortly after:

That was such an amazing coincidence tonight! It isn't just someone I knew through computing or something where knowing you wouldn't be that bizarre, but this is someone from high school from long before either of us had anything to do with computers. That's boggling. She and I became friends right before her graduation and became old-school snail mail pen pals for a while and lost touch. What a neat thing to happen!

What are the odds on this, that two of my acquaintances from completely separate circles, both randomly coming into a chat, would rediscover each other after two decades?

If you want to see what happens next, watch my twitter account for more livestreaming announcements.

Happy Holidays!

Team Vox
Dec 25, 2009
13 comments

6acardVOX

6 comments

Happy Holidays to you, your family, friends and neighbors from all of us at Vox.
See you in 2010!

On turning "30"

Well, not actually 30. Today's my birthday, and I'm turning 30 only if you measure it in hexadecimal, a milestone I've been looking forward to for the past 6 years. (It gives away the secret if you say "I'm 2D years old".)

It's not only my birthday, but it's also the birthday of my brother Russ, exactly one year younger than me (and always has been... imagine that!).

It's also a famous day for people who are at least a bit older than me: Kennedy was shot on my second birthday, and my brother's first birthday, so we hear a lot about that on our birthday as various major anniversaries kick in.

Today is also the birthday of my "twin sister", Mariel Hemingway. After discovering that she shares my exact date of birth from the old Internet Movie Database, I had called her my "twin sister" on my web homepage since from nearly the beginning of having a website for stonehenge.com. It took a couple of years, but I found an address that happened to reach her, and she sent me an autographed picture of her, and I sent her husband an autographed copy of Learning Perl. For a few years, we exchanged birthday cards, and then the address started bouncing so I left it alone.

Mariel Hemingway Twitter Exchange 2

Until this year. I noticed Ms Hemingway was on Twitter, so I started tweeting about my "twin sister". Apparently, she noticed, and responded kindly. And if she's reading this, thank you. :)

Looking back, it's been a really rough year for me. Brought to the brink of financial ruin, losing close relatives and longtime friends, and my own medical struggles, have all really tested my endurance. I have made it clear to my longtime friends though that the stress of this past year has easily exceeded the stress I felt in 1995 during my arrest and felony conviction. Yes, "a new high in lows".

And in a typical "Randal" fashion, right alongside those pains, I've had some pretty amazing things happen, with the success of FLOSS Weekly and my re-entry into the Smalltalk world. It's all Mr Toad's Wild Ride constantly, and yet there I times I say "I wouldn't have it any other way".

I'm taking Mom on her second cruise in a few weeks... a nice run down into the eastern Carribean on Insight Cruise sailing # 50. This will mark her first visit to the east coast, and her first time in an airplane in (gad) 50 years. She also had to get her first passport ever. She's excited, and can't wait. Of course, having a seasoned traveller like me along has been very helpful for her... but she comes up with those questions I didn't realize anyone would ever have. :)

For those of you who have stood by me and continue to do in my times of trouble, thank you. For those of you who think my life is just fine all the time, please pay attention. :)

And we continue... one day at a time.

I'm on fire, bay-bee!

Randal Schwartz
Nov 21, 2009
1 comment

In the past 10 days, I've delivered a talk I call "Karaoke for Fun and Profit" not once, but twice, at two separate "ignite" events: IgnitePortland and IgniteSalem.

I pitched the talk a bit as an afterthought... I had originally pitched a talk about FLOSS Weekly to IgnitePortland, which had been rejected as too self serving. The karaoke idea came quickly in response, but once accepted, there was the dread of having to actually write a talk that fulfilled the over-the-top promises I had made. And once the Portland talk was confirmed, Salem quickly asked me to do the same thing in their venue, to which I agreed as a "rehearsal" for Portland.

I have lots of practice delivering short, medium, and long talks to classrooms around the world. That wasn't the problem here. The problem was having slides that auto-advanced every 15 seconds for five minutes, and had to be frozen two full weeks before my performance, just a few days after I had been accepted. This was all new, and required a different thinking to generate. I managed to pull it off though, being warmly received in both venues.

You can watch the IgniteSalem video (which was shot on my brand-new Canon 7D in 1080p mode), or the IgnitePortland performance (as published officially by the event). Or both, and compare.

Exciting News from Six Apart (and the YouTube Conduit is Fixed)

Team Vox
Nov 17, 2009
49 comments

First, we're happy to announce that the team has identified and fixed the issue with the YouTube conduit; you can now find and add videos from YouTube to your library and posts. As always, thanks for your patience!

The other news we have today is about a new addition to the Six Apart family: TypePad Micro, a new free level of TypePad that is streamlined for microblogging. We see a new form of blogging emerging that lives between the quick status updates of Twitter and Facebook and the long-form posts of "classic" blogging; TypePad Micro is designed to meet that need. You can read more about TypePad Micro in Chris Alden's post on the Everything TypePad blog.

TypePad Micro

10 comments

A lot of the new capabilities we've added to TypePad this year were actually inspired by some of the best things about Vox: favoriting, member profiles, a dashboard to follow other bloggers, and easy ways to post content from other social media sites. But the things that make Vox different from TypePad are still there: Vox has always been -- and still is -- the best place for "friends and family" blogging, where you're in control over who sees what. TypePad, on the other hand, is built for the blogger who wants, no, craves, attention.

Do you have a passion or interest you want to share with people beyond your Vox neighborhood? If so, we'd love it if you tried out TypePad Micro. Maybe you've always wanted to start that obsessive blog that's just about waffle restaurants. Or want a place to share videos of your favorite band (Jonas Brothers, anyone? Anyone? ...). TypePad Micro's great for those topic-specific blogs. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.

On the Vox front, our designers are working on some cool new themes (coming soon!). We'd also love to hear your thoughts about where we should take Vox in the coming year. What are the key things you'd like to see for Vox? If you've had a chance to use TypePad this year, what are the features there that we should bring over to Vox? And, if you're thinking big thoughts, how could we connect the Vox and TypePad communities in order to bring together bloggers and their shared passions? Your feedback is really important to us, so please leave a comment here, or shoot me a message.

And again, thanks for your patience as we found and fixed the YouTube bug!

~ daisy

COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED. If you have a suggestion, please send it directly to me. Thanks!

YouTube Conduit

Team Vox
Nov 16, 2009
21 comments

As many of you have noticed, the YouTube Conduit is not working. I am so sorry about this; I know how frustrating it is.

The team is looking into how to get this fixed and I will update you as soon as I hear something. In the meantime, not all is lost... There is a work-around for posting videos.

When you're in the Compose Screen, just click on "embed." Ignore the fact that it says "Widget" before everything because you can definitely use this to embed videos as well. You'll just need to input the embed code from the video, enter a title (if you want) and hit OK.

It might not show up perfectly in your compose screen, but when you hit "Save," your video should appear just the way you wanted it to.

Hopefully this will allow you to keep posting videos while we figure out what's happening on our end.

As always, thanks for your patience.

~daisy

The Amazon Conduit is Fixed

Team Vox
Nov 2, 2009
26 comments

Go forth and fill your libraries with media.

Seriously, thanks to everyone for being so amazing and patient. You are the reason I love Vox.

~daisy

Amazon Conduit Update

Team Vox
Oct 29, 2009
22 comments

I was just told that the Amazon Conduit will be fixed by tomorrow. I will post here as soon as I get word that it's back up and running.

I know this has been frustrating and I am sorry there wasn't more I could do to make it less so. I really appreciate your patience though.

Cheers,

daisy

New Knytz! For Your Kneck!

KymPossible
Oct 20, 2009
2 comments

Three new scarves posted in my Etsy shop, more coming soon.

My So Called Scarf (Sunset)

50% silk, 50% merino wool, 100% soft, warm, and gorgeous!

DSCN0332

My So Called Scarf (Heathcliff)

50% silk, 50% merino wool, 100% soft, warm, and gorgeous!

DSCN0342

Cloud Around My Neck (Dark Denim Blue)

100% baby alpaca. sooooo soft...

DSCN0347

Amazon Conduit: Update

Team Vox
Oct 20, 2009
24 comments

Bad news. As many of you have probably noticed, the Amazon Conduit was not fixed in the last week's release. Unfortunately, there was an undetected bug that is preventing the conduit from working.

We are working on this bug fix and hope to have the Conduit back up and running this week.

I will keep you posted.

Thank you for being so patient.

~daisy