Hi Tech?

This is what the lobby of our office building looks like every time it rains:

Nice work, Equity Office..

Dancing at Waterfire with the Ladies of the Rolling Pin

My Morris team (well, a fraction thereof...) danced in Providence last night at Waterfire, at the invitation of the Ladies of the Rolling Pin. Several other teams were there, too, including a partial side from Newtowne; we teamed up to dance about a half a dozen dances.

After the dancing I wandered around for a while, taking in the sights and people.

Downtown Providence is quite lovely at night.

There are a few more pictures, and a video clip of the lighting of the Waterfire lamps, in this album:

Waterfire w/LORP, August 2012

Can you spare 3 minutes...

...to debunk the myth of "You didn't build that!"?

The Romney campaign has been flogging the notion that Socialist President Obama said to business owners, "You didn't build that [business]!" In fact, in context, the "that" in the sentence is clearly referring to"roads and bridges." Obama was talking about all the infrastructure that enables business to thrive.

But don't take my word for it. Take a look at the entire, unedited video of Obama's speech in Roanoke Virginia on July 13th that set off this little firestorm. If you don't want to watch it all, just grab the pointer and drag into 32:30. Then watch the next 3 minutes.

If you want to find reasons to prefer Romney over Obama, at least do so with a little integrity.

The rest of the speech is pretty damn inspiring, too, in this viewer's opinion.

A note: I received an anonymous comment that I will not publish, even though I don't find any of the content particularly objectionable. I don't blog anonymously, and I hold commenters to the same standard.

My love-hate relationship with Amazon

This morning I read in the Times that Jeff Bezos has pledged $2.5M in support of same-sex marriage in Washington State. I wanted to let Amazon know that I'm happy about this support by its CEO, so I clicked on over to amazon.com to find their "contact us" link.

Without success.

Unless I'm just hopelessly blind this morning, Amazon doesn't seem to have a mechanism for receiving general feedback.

And so goes the ongoing saga of my relationship with Amazon. for example: I'm a long-time Kindle user; I own every model of the Kindle so far, except the DX. Obviously I like reading on the Kindle. It's great to be able to carry a whole library with me in a small, light-weight package that can go a week without recharging, and my eyes appreciate the ability to change font sizes to accommodate changing reading conditions. Being able to sample a book before buying has made me a more adventurous reader.

But -- the DRM periodically drives me crazy. Subscriptions are especially painful. I was delighted when the New York Times Kindle Edition finally became good enough that we could cancel our paper subscription to the Times; I hated putting out pounds of paper each week in the recycling. But I can only have the Times delivered to one of my Kindles - making it impossible for Katy and I to share the Sunday Times. We can sort of work around this by using the digital access that comes with a Kindle subscription to read the Times on an iPad, but it's not the same.

Then there is Amazon's stance on sales tax. It's just utterly bogus to claim at this point in the history of the Internet that requiring online retailers to collect and pay state sales taxes is "too onerous" or would "suppress online sales." Many online retailers manage this without any problems; surely Amazon could as well. Yet Amazon continues to lobby against this.

Ah, well. Thanks, Jeff, for the good; can you try to do something about the bad?

Boston Dining Cards, 2011-2012

I gave Katy a deck of Boston Dining Cards for her 50th birthday today. As an added bonus, I created a map with showing all the restaurants.


View Boston Dining Cards 2011-2012 in a larger map

And now we are Qlikies

Today Expressor Software, the little data integration software company I work for, was acquired by Qliktech, makers of the Qlikview Business Discovery Platform. This is very good development for us; Expressor Studio complements Qlikview very nicely, and since Qliktech is a rapidly growing, publicly traded company,we're going to have a lot more development horsepower to move our product forward.

Expressor has come along way since I joined almost three years ago. We introduced a completely new UI in late 2010, along with a mostly-new data movement engine (the piece I work on), and each of the subsequent releases has added major new functionality.

But beyond the software, we've also become a highly productive engineering team. We've been introducing a new release every 3 months or so for the past 18 months. Without the close coordination we have among our UI, repository, engine and QA teams, we never could have done this without sacrificing product quality -- but we've kept the quality up, and even managed significant internal improvements that helped performance and stability while we did this. This is a great group of people to work with, and even though we've been working our butts off, I've really enjoyed the work.

Next week we're all going to Qliktech's office in Lund, Sweden, for an introduction to our engineering counterparts - and to celebrate midsummer. It's not technically a vacation - but it sure is a nice break from our usual routine. It's a pretty amazing way of welcoming us into the company. Katy is coming with me, and we'll be spending a few days on either end of the trip exploring Copenhagen.

Qliktech, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. (roll credits)

The end of the line for the Juxtacomm patent?

It looks like the U.S. Patent Office has issued a final, please-get-out-of-my-face rejection of essentially all of the claims of the infamous '662 patent, which the Canadian patent trolls software firm Teilhard Technologies has been using to shake down litigate against software vendors, including IBM, Oracle, Informatica and many others.

See my earlier posting about the USPTO's ruling on the '662 patent to find out how access the decision from the USPTO web site, or just follow these links to my copies:

• Reexamination - final rejection of claims
• Reexamination - reject of finality petition denied

According to Pacer, the current round of litigation is winding down, with dismissals already issued or pending for many of the defendants. At last.

SmileTrain - a protection racket

For literally years now, I've been getting mailings about every 2 weeks from SmileTrain, a charity that helps children born with a cleft lip or palate get the repair surgery they need to lead relatively normal lives. A worthy cause, yes? I suppose - but their fundraising strategy amounts to a protection racket. I quote:

"Make one gift now and we'll never ask for another donation again."

 Right. According to a report by CharityWatch, this is a lie. Further, in 2009 SmileTrain had an overhead rate of about 30%, while claiming that "100% of your donation goes to program - 0% goes to overhead." Part of that overhead was the $678,058 that President and Co-Founder Brian Mullaney received in compensation.

 I hate to see scumbags making money off unfortunate children.

Loud and Close

Katy and I just got home from seeing "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." Wow. Fantastic acting all the way around, and absolutely riveting. It'll be a while before I calm down enough to be able to sleep.

See it.

Where did the jobs go?

Today's New York Times has a long article (How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work) that offers a discouraging picture for job growth in the U.S. The problem isn't labor costs per se; rather, it's that the entire manufacturing supply chain has shifted from the U.S. to Asia. - a change initially caused by labor costs, but now self-perpetuating.

One former high-ranking Apple executive said that the focus on Asia “came down to two things.” Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what’s in the U.S.” The result is that “we can’t compete at this point.”

The glass used in the iPhone's display provides a great example, As Corning's CFO observed:

“Our customers are in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China. We could make the glass here, and then ship it by boat, but that takes 35 days. Or, we could ship it by air, but that’s 10 times as expensive. So we build our glass factories next door to assembly factories, and those are overseas.”

This isn't a change that can be undone overnight.

 But besides the supply chain issue, there's labor flexibility. That innocent-looking comment that factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” really means that workers can be hired - and fired - on short notice. The jobs may pay well, by local standards, but there is no job security. Large portions of business risk are outsourced to employees.

Job security is an issue labor unions fought hard for in the first half of the 20th century, with considerable success.  It's hard to argue that job insecurity is a good thing for workers and the communities they live in, but this is exactly what U.S. manufacturers - and Republican politicians - are asking for when they want an easing of labor regulations and oppose unionization.

So what's the solution? Over time, I have to believe that Asia's workers will insist on better conditions, there will be greater balance between regions in terms of labor rules, and manufacturing will gradually redistribute closer to the point of consumption. But that will take decades.

I don't know how to solve this problem. But I do know that any politician - Left or Right - who promises a short-term solution is pedaling snake oil.

Rick Santorum is Google-bombed...

...and it made this week's issue of The New Yorker. The short article Bombs Away is a cautionary tale regarding importance of managing search results (to the extent that that's possible...). Warning: the top Google hit for Santorum is Not Suitable for Work.

My mother is gone

Dancing with Mom in early 2009

Mom died just shy of three weeks ago. I can't really write about this yet, but here is a copy of the obituary we placed in the Lancaster paper.

Jean L. Myers, 84, of Elizabethtown died Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at the Masonic Village Health Care Center, after a brief illness. She was the loving companion of the late Dr. Zeb Bell, the widow of Dr. Carl Myers, and the former wife of Jerry Callen.

Jean was born in Nanty Glo, PA and grew up in nearby Roaring Spring, the daughter of the late Clarence and Ethel (Lape) Lauer. She received her R.N. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1947 and began a lifelong nursing career. Newlyweds Jean and Jerry settled in Jerry's hometown of Windber, PA, where Jean combined mothering her three children with nursing at the Windber hospital and serving as school nurse at the high school. The family moved to Satellite Beach, FL in 1968, where Jean first worked as a nurse for Melbourne Hospital, and later for Dr. Frederick Remark in his private practice. After she and Jerry parted in 1986, Jean moved to McMurray, PA, near Pittsburgh, where she married Carl Myers and worked at McMurray Hills Manor. When Carl became ill, Jean cared for him at home until his death in 1992. Her subsequent deep friendship with Zeb Bell lasted until Zeb's death in 2002.

Jean moved to the Masonic Village in Elizabethtown in 2008. In addition to her nursing career, Jean was an active, lifelong Lutheran. She taught Sunday school in Windber and played piano for the choir. Most recently, she attended Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in McMurray and Trinity Lutheran Church in Mount Joy. She was also a member of the Order of the Eastern Star, Chartiers Chapter, #97, of Canonsburg.

Jean leaves behind two daughters and a son: Jean A. Ulmer, the wife of Robert Ulmer, of Elizabethtown; Cyndi L. Callen of Bethel Park, PA; and Jerry L. Callen, husband of Katy Petersen, of Cambridge, MA. She remained close to her brother, Jerry Lauer, and his wife, Anne, of Orlando, FL. Visits with her six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren brought her great joy.

Relatives and friends are invited to attend a celebration of Jean's life at the John S. Sell Memorial Chapel at Masonic Village on Friday, December 9, at 10:30 AM. There will be a time of visitation with the family from 9:30 AM until the time of the service. Another celebration is planned for next spring in McMurray, PA.

Contributions in Jean's memory may be sent to either the Bleiler Caring Cottage at Masonic Village, 1 Masonic Drive, Elizabethtown PA 17022 or Trinity Lutheran Church, 47 W. Main St., Mount Joy, PA 17552.

Halloween

I like Halloween. It's a low-pressure, high-fun holiday. This year it wound up being spread out over several days, which made it even nicer.

RuthAnne dressed up for work on Saturday as a contruction worker...



...and again on Monday as a (pretty urban-looking) cowhand.



As usual, we carved pumpkins. The three really nice ones are Katy's handywork; the moon and stars is mine.








We had a lot of trick-or-treaters (as usual), including our dancing buddies Melissa and Robert, and their son, Ethan, who came in for for a chat.

Sailing Vineyard Sound

Katy and I spent last Wednesday through Saturday sailing her father's 30' Morgan sailboat from its home in Waquoit Bay to Cuttyhunk, Oak Bluffs and Edgartown. It was my first real sailing trip (I'd done one small overnight many years earlier) and, it turns out, the first time Katy has done a multi-day cruise as the "responsible adult" onboard. We had generally excellent weather; it was sunny all four days. Wednesday had extremely high winds that were, frankly, a little scary, but in general the sailing was great.

Pictures are available in this Picasa album.

Sailing, October 2011

I managed to break the 5th metatarsal bone in my right foot on the first day, as we set out to explore Cuttyhunk. I found I could stand and walk a little with the foot bandaged and shoved into a hiking boot (ouch...), so we decided not to abort the trip and, in fact, extended by a night. When we got to Oak Bluffs and Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard I was able to get around on rented bicycles, so even our sightseeing was only slightly curtailed. I did, however, have to spend most of my sailing time at the wheel; moving around on the boat, especially on rocking seas, was not practical.

We used a mixture of paper charts and GPS for navigation. The charts were good for trip planning and "the big picture", while the GPS excelled at helping us stay on course and navigate through the often-narrow channels (surrounded by shoals and, in many cases, submerged rocks...) of the Elizabeth Islands. It would be very easy to become GPS-dependent.

I had more fun that I actually expected to; I thought that much of the sailing would be boring, and it was anything but that. I'm eager to do more - next spring, once the weather warms up and my foot has healed.

"We can barely defend ourselves."

Today's New York Times has several articles regarding the apparent debt ceiling deal, and this one contains this quote from Republican representative Bobby Schilling, member of the Armed Services Committee. He was expressing concern over the "automatic cuts" that would engage if certain legislative milestones are not met.

Mr. Schilling whipped out a little chart that showed a reduction in bombers and other weapons programs over recent years. He said the proposed cuts to the military if a new Congressional committee should fail to come up with a deficit reduction plan that passes muster with Congress “really scares me,” he said. “We’re on the fringe right now. We can barely defend ourselves.” (emphasis added)

Really??? We can barely defend ourselves???

OMG. What is this bozo doing on the House Armed Services Committee?

The Last Reentry

The crew of the International Space Station took these pictures of the final flight of a space shuttle (Atlantis, STS-135).  I learned of these images from the August 1, 2011 edition of Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).
 

Latest Juxtacomm case stayed

In the continuing saga of the Juxtacomm patent tale, the case against Lanier Parking Systems has been stayed, pending the outcome of the reexamination of the patent. From Pacer:


Case 3:11-cv-00299-JRS   Document 74    Filed 07/21/11

Civil Action No. 3:11BCVB299

United States District Court
Eastern District of Virginia
Richmond Division
JUXTACOMM-TEXAS SOFTWARE, LLC, Plaintiff,
 v.
LANIER PARKING SYSTEMS OF VIRGINIA, INC. et al., Defendants.

ORDER

THIS MATTER is before the Court on a Motion to Stay Case Pending Reexamination filed by Defendant Lanier Parking Systems of Virginia, Inc. (ECF No. 39). Defendants Dominion Tower Financial Associates LLC, First Tower Associates LLC, First States Investors 3500 LLC, James Center Property LLC, and Hines Riverfront Plaza, LP have joined the motion (ECF Nos. 55, 57, 65, 71), which Plaintiff JuxtaComm-Texas Software, LLC, opposes. The Court held a hearing on this matter on July 20, 2011.

Courts deciding motions to stay patent litigation pending reexamination consider the following factors:

(1) whether discovery is complete and a trial date is scheduled;
(2) whether a stay would simplify the matters at issue; and
(3) whether a stay would unduly prejudice or clearly disadvantage the non-moving party.

 NTP, Inc. v. T-Mobile, USA, Inc., No. 3:07–CV–548, 2007 WL 3254796, at *2 (E.D.Va. Nov. 2, 2007).

Each of these considerations favors granting a stay. First, the status of the reexamination is advanced when juxtaposed with the stage of litigation—that is, while the reexamination has reached the Final Office Action stage, this litigation is in its infancy. Furthermore, JuxtaComm served the Defendants after receiving a Final Office Action that rejected virtually all the claims at issue in this litigation. Next, it appears likely that final resolution of the reexamination would simplify matters in this case by indicating whether JuxtaComm has grounds to proceed in this patent infringement matter. Finally, any harms that JuxtaComm experiences as a result of a stay would be recoverable through monetary damages.

For these reasons, which will be discussed in greater detail in the forthcoming Memorandum Opinion, the Court finds that the Defendants’ request is not a dilatory litigation tactic but a reasonable request designed to prevent this litigation from proceeding under a “cloud of invalidity.” Accordingly, the Court GRANTS the motion to stay and DIRECTS the Plaintiff to file reexamination status reports every 120 days.
Let the Clerk send a copy of this Order to all counsel of record.

It is SO ORDERED.

ENTERED this 21st day of July 2011.
/s/
James R. Spencer
Chief United States District Judge

Noanet Woodlands

This morning I drove out to Dover to visit Noanet Woodlands, yet another Trustees of Reservations site. It turns out to be a bit tricky to find. It's not marked with the usual, large "Trustees of Reservations" sign; it's actually accessed thru Caryl Park. If you look closely at the entrance to the eastern parking lot for the park there's a small mention of the Trustees site, but you'll never see it from the road.

I only covered a small portion of the available trails; this is a very large reservation.


View Larger Map

I suggest staying on the side trails as much as possible; the wealthy good people of Dover use this heavily for dog-walking and mountain-biking. The dogs kinda got to me; they were generally off-leash and roaming freely. You won't see a lot of wildlife for that reason.

Nature Walks in the Western burbs

I spent today riding my scooter around the western suburbs of Boston, in search of nature walks. Before leaving I picked out a few places to visit, based on our family memberships in the Mass Audubon Society and Trustees of Reservations; I would definitely visit Drumlin Farm in Lincoln and the Broadmoor sanctuary in Natick. As it turned out, I did more than that, and just missed a place I really want to go back and pick up. I also stopped in for a visit with Dan, one of my former colleagues at IBM.


View Larger Map

We used to take the kids out to Drumlin Farm pretty regularly, but I haven't been there in probably at least 10 years. It is bigger than I remembered, and it now has this cool, solar-powered bird mobile.

From 2011-07-16

I wandered around for about an hour, and then rode down to Dan's house in Wayland. He suggested I visit nearby Garden in the Woods, so when I left his house, I did.

The New England Wild Flower Society runs the Garden, and it's a lovely spot. Here are some of the pictures I took as I walked around.

From 2011-07-16

From 2011-07-16

From 2011-07-16

From 2011-07-16

From 2011-07-16

From there I made my way, not especially directly, to the Broadmoor sanctuary in Natick. Because of our connection with Drumlin Farm, we've been Mass Audubon members for probably 20 years, but this was the first time I've visited Broadmoor. It's enormous, with a large trail system.

From 2011-07-16

From 2011-07-16

From 2011-07-16

From 2011-07-16

From 2011-07-16

I want to go back to Broadmoor again; they open a portion of the trails in the winter for cross-country skiing.

My last two stops were accidental; I passed the Trustees of Reservations sites Chase Woodlands and Powisset Farm. I was unfortunately unaware that, while at Powisset Farm, I was literally across the street from Noanet Highlands, a truly gigantic preserve with views of downtown Boston. Ah, well - something for another day.

...and yet...

Today's APOD has a picture of Atlantis making its last docking approach to the International Space Station.

I've long felt that the Shuttle was a terrible mistake for NASA - fragile, expensive, limited in usefulness. I can't help but think that we could, instead, have gone to Mars, pursued a much more robust robotic planetary exploration program, and in general gotten a lot more for our money.

And yet - the images, the hardware, the teamwork required to fly these monsters are inspiring.

I'm glad the program is ending - and I will miss it.

The Bottle Bill

Tonight I walked over to my local beer outlet in Davis Square, Downtown Wine and Spirits, to return empties and buy more beer. I really like the selection at Downtown, but they are a pain to deal with regarding empties. Like many liquor stores, they have gone to the freakin' redemption machines that turn what should be a really quick transaction into a drawn-out process of shoving in bottles one...at...a...time. Downtown is also slow to update the machines when they add new brands, with the result that you have to return some bottles outside and then get on line to return the rest inside - where they take them rather grudgingly.

Tonight, the machine was just flat-out down, and when I took the bottles inside, the guy behind the counter tried to tell me that I'd have to come back once the machine was repaired. I got pushy and got him to take my bottles - but the confrontation sucked.

SO - when I got home, I checked on the law. Here's a part of what the Massachusetts state government site has to say about the bottle bill (I've added some emphasis at places):

Where can I return empty beverage containers?

Residents can return empty containers to any redemption center that agrees to accept the containers, or any retail outlet that sells or sold within the past sixty days the same brand, type and size of container. Retail outlets must redeem containers for their full redemption value. 

What obligations do retailers have in accepting containers?

Retailers must redeem empty containers during all of their business hours. There is no similar restriction on redemption centers. Restaurants charging a deposit on containers for off- or on-premise consumption must redeem empty containers. Restaurants do not have to redeem empty containers if they sell beverages for on-premise consumption and do not charge a deposit. Vending machine operators must redeem containers at the location of the vending machine, or post a conspicuous notice on the machine stating where and from whom a refund may be obtained. The notice does not have to specify how close the refund location is to the vending machine. If you encounter a business that is not complying with any of these requirements, you may register a complaint by calling the MassDEP Bottle Bill Hotline at 617-556-1054.

Is there a limit on the number of containers that can be returned at one time?

A retailer is only required to accept 120 containers in one day from any one person, but may choose to accept more. There is no similar restriction on redemption centers.

Hiking Monadnock with Anil

Today Anil and I hiked to the summit of Mt. Monadnock. This was Anil's first hike ever.

This GPS track shows where we went, and contains placemarks with pictures.


View Larger Map

The Juxtacomm patent may soon be invalidated

I learned yesterday (via Vincent McBurney's blog) that the infamous "ETL patent" (technically, patent 6,195,662 - System for transforming and exchanging data between distributed heterogeneous computer systems) is being re-examined by the U.S. Patent Office. The examiner intends to withdraw essentially all of the claims.

It's a bit tricky to get information about this from the USPTO web site, and it's not possible to link to much of its content. If you want to look, here are the necessary steps:

• Go to the Public PAIR start page, type in the captcha, and click "continue".
• In the "search for application" panel, make sure the top radio button is selected ("Application number"), enter 90/011267 in the box, and click "search".
  
• Click on the "Image File Wrapper" tab. You'll then see a list of documents associated with the application. You may want to look at Reexam proceeding - Advisory Action, dated 06-07-2011, 9 pages. It states the intent to withdraw claims 1-11 and 14-19.

The patent is held by Teilhard Technologies, a privately-held Canadian firm, also known as Juxtacomm. They successfully used this patent to reach settlements with a large number of companies (Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Informatica, and many more) worth millions of dollars.

In 2009, while working for IBM, I was deposed in the matter and got to see, up close and personal, how this kind of legal action works. I can't discuss my involvement in any detail, but I will say that it was my impression that there was adequate prior art to have prevented this patent from issuing. This was a stupendous waste of resources; the defendants in the case seem to have paid out nearly $100 million in settlements, to say nothing of the money spent on legal fees. The supposed purpose of the patent system - to encourage innovation - was not served in any way by this affair. 

I don't know how to fix our patent system, but this case is a clear demonstration that it's broken.

Update:  This American Life has done a show on patent trolls.

If you want to feel tiny...

...just take a look at today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD). It's a picture of  Abell 2744, also known as  Pandora's cluster.

That's a lot of galaxies!

Utha Graduates

About a month ago RuthAnne was awarded her Associate of Arts from Harvard Extension School; I've finally tracked down my SD flash card reader so I can upload the pictures. I expect complaints about this from RuthAnne...

Owen testing out the cap

See, they can smile!

The cap on its rightful dome

The Goods

So - tell me how...

...you really feel.

A final update: the "official" picture.

From RuthAnne 2011-06-29

Henna, again

Last weekend RuthAnne re-dyed my hair with henna. I've been using henna from hennaforhair.com, which is quite expensive; this time I use henna from a local store in Central Square.

It was $3.00 for a 5 and a half ounce bag (of which I used about half a bag, with a lot of what I mixed left over). It's excellent henna; there was a very strong dye release, and I like the resulting color.

So much for the high-priced spread. But The Henna Page (same people as hennaforhair.com) is still a great information source for henna, both for use as a hair dye and for mehandi.