kasia in a nutshell

I went grocery shopping today. Since I live in the suburbs, that translates to visiting a large supermarket. As I was walking towards the store I noticed a black Mustang pulling into one of the handicapped spaces.. A young woman got out on one side and a five, maybe six year old boy from the other. Both very obviously not handicapped.

A minivan with a handicapped plate stopped dead in front of the mustang.. a man yelled out..

"Hey lady, you took the last handicapped space!"

I looked around, sure enough they were all taken.

The woman kept walking, didn't even make eye contact with the obviously annoyed driver of the van. The little boy turned around but his mom grabbed him by the arm and he trotted to catch up.

"Hey lady!"

They kept walking. I just stood there, I suppose I was hoping the woman would do something. Swear, yell, make eye contact, show some emotion.. Not even a shrug.

The man in the van yelled "I hope you get a hundred dollar ticket!" and pulled around the curb presumably to park way on the back where hopefully no cars will park next to him and block the wheelchair ramp. I walked into the store and dropped the requisite coins in the Salvation Army bucket at the entrance.

Posted by kasia at 06:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (1)

If you haven't heard about this yet, congratulations on being removed from society so well! The mt-send-entry.cgi script in Movable Type allows anyone to send email to anyone using your server, much like formmail.

There is a fix, of sorts available.. although it's not a particularly good one. Spammers can still spam using that, they're just restricted somewhat.. I would suggest everyone just remove the thing altogether, there's no true need for it, it's not part of default MT config and anyone who really really wants to allow people to email entries should just code a better way of doing it. Like with validation of origins and such..

Posted by kasia at 05:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (5)

New "anti-spam" legislature bought and paid for by corporate America. This is ludicrous, self-congratulatory legislature that solves nothing.. in fact it enables companies to spam provided they use real headers and add removal instructions.. of course those probably will be a 900-number in most cases.

Anti-spam.. that's laughable.. Karl has more to say on the issue.

Posted by kasia at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (2)

I realized this morning that I have five, (count them: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) on-going projects that I'm actively working on. This isn't work-related, just my own little side-projects to simplify (heh) my life. At least that's the long-run intention. This isn't a new development by far.. I've always had several things going on at once.

Why isn't that I tend to do this?

Anyone who has better time management skills than your average five year old realizes that it's better to finish something before starting a new project. The biggest time-sucker is finding that particular spot where you left off the last time you worked on the task. Now assuming you spend about an hour a day on some project, each day a different one, and it takes you 15 minutes to arrive at the spot you left off last time.. that's a lot of wasted time. That's where I am.

Now to attempt to answer the question why is it that I divide myself into many projects instead of concentrating on one and actually finishing it.

Boredom.

I get bored easily. If I work on something for too long and don't have quick gratification of immediate results I tend to get bored with the task. That's a terrible trait in a programmer.. after all.. any decent-sized project takes weeks before you start seeing a result! Hours upon hours of work.

So I could approach my little side-projects the way I do work. Schedule, and well, just do it... but I'm afraid that will take the enjoyment out of it.. and what fun would that be.

Or I could continue the way I have been, wasting precious time (oh, how I wish I didn't need to sleep), tediously working through the more boring parts and delaying that good proud-of-myself feeling I get when I manage to do something really cool.

I suppose programming is much like running a long race.. you start out all excited and full of joy, sweat through the middle, force yourself to keep going towards the end and always manage to find that little push to finish looking strong. After that it's just all joy and pride and happy, good feelings. You did it, went for the long one and finished without quitting. You tell yourself you'll never put your body through this again.. but before you know all you remember is the good stuff, forget how bad the bad parts were and sign up for the next one.

Except for that one bruised toe.. that's still there over a month later.

So approaching programming like running.. I guess it's time to sweat and finish these off one at a time. But will I still enjoy it if I do?

Posted by kasia at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (2)

Like many fine lunatics world-wide I enjoy singing while driving. In fact, I enjoy it so immensely I have a whole separate playlist of sing-along-friendly songs by such talented artists as Edie Brickell and Tracy Chapman. I also enjoy driving with my car window down when it's warm.

It's been unseasonably warm in the bowels of Connecticut these past few days and that combined with a trip to the bookstore resulted in these two particular habits of mine occurring at precisely the same time. Since my iPod was playing my more-generalized playlist of random music I like, the result was me belching out "Owner of a lonely heart" in my finest imitation of a puberty-afflicted twelve year old going through a voice change. I pulled into the crowded parking lot, squeezed my little Mazda in between behemoth-sized SUVs and proceeded to the entrance to the temple of the paid written word. In other words, I went to my local Borders.

As I was browsing through the finest selection of Perl books on this side of route 9, a rather average looking 20-some year old with a smirk approached me.

"I heard you singing"

I think I may have blinked at that, not certain.

"Are you looking for an apology?"

I asked rather pleasantly, I tend to be polite to strangers. He chuckled and lied.

"No, no, you were pretty good! I was standing next to you at the red light, your window was down."

I wasn't sure whether I should congratulate him on his skills of observation or be disturbed that he appeared to have followed me into a store just to tell me he heard my bad rendition of a 70s-era rock song.

"Would you like to grab a cup of coffee?"

He waved in the general direction of the bookstore coffee shop. The kind filled with intellectual looking people discussing the important events of the world.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"Aw, why not?"

Why not? Hah, where shall I begin.. Not like this is the first time I got hit on at the bookstore (last week in world war II history section), but that's not the point.

"I wouldn't want to risk any future offspring I may have being tone-deaf".

His turn to blink. I think I confused him.

"oh, okay, have a good one".

I believe I heard the squealing of tires as he rushed out of any vicinity of what he obviously thought was a lunatic in jeans. Hence ended my adventure for the day, time to eat the pizza before it gets cold.

I ended up not buying any books.

Posted by kasia at 07:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Robert Scoble is sorry for our troubles.. where 'us' is everyone who gets caught in the horrible virus-infected-new-machine problem.. That was nice, particularly coming from a Microsoft employee. Certainly feels better to read 'yes we have a problem' as opposed to 'you didn't do the right thing, so it's your fault'.

Thanks!

But it would make me happier to hear that Microsoft is working on a better security model.. What I'd love to see in windows.. is well, essentially the unix security model. Root/Administrative account that isn't used for logins.. just via a tool (sudo, for instance) to explicitely update/install etc.. stuff.. Of course with that goes a very fundamental change to the OS... Do not require system changes to install application unless those applications actually affect the system. Much like unix.

I know many people think that the reason there aren't many linux viruses is because it's not quite as popular. That's actually not really accurate.. it's because even if a user executes an email attachment on a linux machine, unless he's running as root (and most people who use linux know better) the virus won't be able to do anything bad to the sytem. So linux viruses are kind of pointless.

Posted by kasia at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (3)

VoodooPad:

VoodooPad is a new kind of notepad. It's like having your own personal hypertext library, where you can jot down notes, web addresses, to-do lists... Anything on your mind. VoodooPad automatically links each page together, to form a miniature world wide web, on your desktop! Anybody familiar with the WikiWikiWeb will feel right at home with VoodooPad.

Very nifty.. been playing with it tonight.. makes making to-do lists a snap.

Posted by kasia at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It's a truly wonderful, if somewhat depressing movie. Spectacular cinematography, great acting and a passionate story. No matter what one may think of Polanski as a person, he is a truly gifted director. I do believe that his personal story (he lived through the Krakow Ghetto) has much to do with how well this movie was made.

I grew up in a small Warsaw suburb and went to a Warsaw high school, so I've always seen it as much my home as Piastow (the town I grew up in) was.. In Poland, we all grew up on stories of the Holocaust. I think every Pole has a family story about those who perished in WWII. It would be hard not to, with so many gone. So this movie hits very close to home, even though i am not Jewish.

I loved that it portrayed people without the usual division into roles. There are bad Jews and good Jews, bad Poles and good Poles and amazingly, for a Holocaust movie, even a good Nazi. It all comes down to a struggle for survival when caught in assigned roles none of us get to choose. Shindler's List was well made but it missed that by a mile. It fell into the usual division of "bad" and "good". I was quite upset with how it portrayed Poles as anti-semitic nazi-slaves. Horribly historically inaccurate and very undeserving to those who risked and gave their lives to help. Like with any people caught in extraordinary circumstances.. some live up to their humanity and some don't. It's never black and white.

There was just one part of the story I didn't like, the German officer most likely died without ever knowing that Szpilman did try to help. That's depressing, but such is life and this was a true story after all.

Posted by kasia at 07:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Jeremy is right Karl is right on as usual.. well, okay, almost usual. I just wish he'd blog more.. maybe I should nag him daily!

kasia: "Yo Karl, update your blog"
Karl: *block kasia*
*sign off*

hm, maybe not.

Here's to lemonade stands and sweet old grannies.

Posted by kasia at 08:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Every couple months or so I hear a horror story from a friend about connecting their new PC or laptop to the Internet. These are not dumb people.. they're just not half as geeky as you and I may be..

Seems logical, to most..

• Buy a new machine
• Go to microsoft.com to update the buggy windows everyone keeps talking about.

.. oops, machine already infected with some virus or trojan in less than 5 minutes after being connected to the net.. not only that, it's so busy popping up messenger spam that it won't even shut down for the required crash.. which is fine since it won't boot up again without some major fixing and updating.

Sounds familiar?

If it doesn't, you're probably not a windows user or knew enough to use a firewall.. see most people don't. Actually, most people don't know what a firewall is.

This isn't new information.. everyone knows this, right? I can see you nodding your head.. so how come the company that makes the software that comes pre-installed on nearly every new PC sold in US does not seem to realize this? Why does windows *still* have this lousy, crummy security model? Maybe instead of a new MS office version #121338734723 it's time to fix the buggy damn OS?

I've had enough.. sorry friends/family/whoever has my phone number.. your windows won't boot? Call Microsoft. I'm going on geek-strike.

Posted by kasia at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (3)

<rant>

• Malls. I have a nice, new winter coat but I still haven't learned to enjoy shopping. House-wives with babies. Little kids running around and screaming. Bored husbands hanging on the outskirts of aisles pretending to be interested. Is it really a wonder I normally grab the first, vaguely interesting thing off the rack and run away?
• The girl at the gym who insists sitting on weight machines reading Vogue. Get a life, it's a gym not a doctor's waiting room.
• Outlet stores, do I even have to say it?
• People who flame perfect strangers for no discernible reason. Anonymously, or so they think.

I'm just tired, cranky and have a cold, don't mind me.

Posted by kasia at 09:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Together at last using Inline::Java

Here's how.

Not sure what I'd use it for but it's cool regardless. Perl, it's what's for dinner.

Posted by kasia at 09:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Julia thinks it takes gumption (I think she wanted to say "balls" ;))to "take on" Dave Winer. To be honest, I'm not so sure.. if I had thought my comment would generate such a response I probably wouldn't have posted it. Which probably means I'm just as much of a wimp as anyone else.. but I really shouldn't be.

It shouldn't have to take guts to disagree with something you know is obviously wrong, unfortunately, more often than not, people tend to attack people.. not their words. Which makes me want to curl into a fetal position and whimper about everyone getting along and love and butterflies and pretty flowers..

So sorry, I'm not gutsy, I don't have balls (physically speaking anyway) but I'm not making apologies either. I don't have anything to apologize for.

Posted by kasia at 07:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Maciej ran the New York City Marathon and lived to blog about. Way to go!

[via: Mark]
(The title means 'congratulations' in Polish in case you're wondering.)

Posted by kasia at 07:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Poland, being a predominantly Roman Catholic country, does not celebrate Halloween -- just all saints day. It's a tradition (really, not sure when it started) to visit your dead and light candles and leave flowers on graves.

Much to my mom's chagrin I'm an atheist but I like the tradition of lighting candles, so, like every year, I visited the cemetery tonight and did just that. I wish I had a better camera or just better photography skills to accurately reflect how beautiful the cemetery looks at night all lit up with candle lights.. I suppose this will have to do until next year and maybe a better camera. Picture.

Posted by kasia at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)