Cherry-picking Pearls in San Francisco

SpokeGrenade (bike light) review. I may have avoided a Presidio crash...

Last Tuesday at 6am I was speeding through San Francisco Presidio park a little ahead of the ~15 other cyclists part of the Mission Cycling Headlands Raid that morning. The public lights were out, the fog was thick and I had only my minuscule blinking LED with me. I believe I was thinking: "When do I get my new front light again?" when my front wheel hit the curb and I hit the pavement with my left side. At the same time I heard someone behind: "Ohhhhhhh" and another: "Shit". Yeah.. You said it.

To answer my own question, I received the new front light yesterday, and I got to try it on my commute. So far it's been an absolutely insanely great light. It's the first time I have a powerful LED (1000 lumens) on my bike, so I may be a bit  too enthousiastic about it, but the experience was just "wow" (read below). I'm poundering getting a second one with an helmet mount.

• Price is $90, which seems to be a good lumens/$ ratio out there.
• The only con - so far (it's a early review) - is that the battery doesn't charge with USB

Your own disco with you.

This is what it feels like. Except you are not alone on the dance floor, you automatically bring several blocks of the street in front of you. The blinking mode makes the entire street flash in rythm. It's very difficult for anyone to ignore your presense. Although, a car on Brannan and Townsend turned on red just in front of me: proof that this is not the antidote  for stupidity.

I've seen pedestrians cover their eyes from a beam that I think is similarly powerful as an average car headlamp. I learned my lessons and I politely decrease the power of the lamp in a busy, correctly lighted street. The light is equiped with the following settings: 100%, 50%, 25% and 100%-blinking.

I can't wait to try it outside the city and take my revenge over the evil Presidio curb that now bears my name.

I'll update this post If I change my opinion or have anything else to share. But I'd give this 5 stars so far:

SpokeGrenade SG-1000e Bicycle Headlight Set

France trip in images

A380 Business Class - Almost Empty, no kids. *Good Times*

 

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Lobsters, Oysters. We had a lot, and on repeated occasions. Yummy.

 

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 Yatching:

 

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Bring Your Kids To Work Day

SAY Media has this tradition (I later learned that this was actually a national event of some sort) of welcoming employee's kids to work for a day, so of course I brought Maelys in, so that she understand a little bit better what daddy does when he is "going to work". Prior to that it was fuzzy in her head, for sure. Each time she wanted me to leave her alone she'd say: "Daddy, go to work. go now".

We had lot of fun activities (drawing on tshirts, touring the office) and then I rode her back to her daycare. She was Sooo proud when I dropped her in the park:

• in a BICYLE ("the blue one with the red one")

• in front of all her friends from the daycare

• after touring daddy's office

She was like a princess arriving late to a ball because she had so much fun at this other event first.

I'm glad to work for a company where we can have such events, thank you SAY Media, especially Moira, Nicki and everyone who helped to make it a great event for Maelys.  Here are a few pictures of the event:

I don't know what she was negotiating with Ben, hopefully something on my behalf. She wouldn't leave Ben's office, that was funny considering that she was so shy initially.

I see 4 babies on that picture. how many can you spot? Moira was nice enough to give us a private tour away from the crowd of other kids. We are in the studio, fixing their art.

Bean bags!

This was my shared-office for 3 months. It was a bit like that, only different (less colors, more laptops).

twitter TODO... hint hint @jack

I love twitter, and like most tools that don't leave me indifferent I have little beefs against it.

• Conversations on twitter are still broken. Seriously, what good it is to have replies as first class stream objects? The main twitter web UI does an horrible job at displaying the conversations. A facebook/blog model  feels much more natural and usable to me.
• Why, oh, why is it easier to upload a picture to my stream with my phone than with my browser? This is 2011, or not?
• The @mentions notifications parser is simply broken. Unless your twitter name is @su3n2044fx the +100MM users out there are "butt-tweeting" you every day
• Please stop telling me about the "old" twitter
• Twitter Lists: Fail? 
• oAuth: implementation of more granular permissions, please?
• 140 characters limit: I love and hate it. removing the limitations for replies would probably make sense.

Gerrit available on Assembla

We use Gerrit at SAY media to help us with the code review process. It has been working quite well for us. Lately, we configured the plugins so that hudson (well, soon replaced by Jenkins) also gives his 2 cents on each proposed change (That is, it votes -1 if the test suite fails).

Gerrit has come a long way from a documentation and installation perspective, so it's much easier to install and maintain that it was a year ago, kudos to the Gerrit team at Google. But now, if you want you can even skip this step by using Assembla's integration:

http://goo.gl/WOtaG

Oh, and there is also a great post and video demonstrating this capabilities in details. Isn't that great to be a developer in the year 2011?

KLM: Targeting Fail

Dear KLM,

Yes, my 3 years old daughter is a good client, with quite a lot or Miles compared to your regular 3 years old. That being said, she's not quite a jetsetter just yet, and as you are well aware, since you ask me to enter her detailed information over and over again at each flight (not trip, flight), she's well... 3 years old.

SO NO BREAK FOR HER, but thanks anyway, her parents will gladely accept a world tour anytime as a compensation though ;-)

 

living on the edge

I'm lucky: One of my grandfather is a self taught, tech savvy person. So, he owns a MacBook Pro, an Android Phone (He's going to wait July to consider the next upgrade).

My other grandparents are just a bit older and are not confortable at all with this kind of technology. They are simultaneously at the generational limit where the technology was just not there or was too cutting edge when they would have been interested, and at the technology limit where it's still not simple and ubiquitous enough for them to jump in the bandwagon now.

In one hand, I can email, skype and share photos instantaneously despite the 9000 kms separation... And on the other I'm stuck with handwritten mails (And the guilty feeling for not to writing often enough). I do not count phone calls: They do not hear so well anymore, so when it's not short, it's comical :)

I so wish iPad 4 was already here. All they would need is a 3G internet connection, one screen with two apps button (mail and video calls).

woman crying with salad

via www.google.com

Did I get this meme right?

Thanks google image! (images copyrighted by their original authors, aka: not me)

Car rental experience on Maui with Enterprise through HotWire

HotWire sent me a customer satisfaction survey...
I thought I'd share my reply here so that enterprise and anyone else interested could find it:

Parking lot guy (Patrick R.) clearly tried to scam me and almost succeeded. Repeatedly he lied to me (at pickup time and then later on the phone). When in doubt I reached to another person on the phone (Vicky) my fears were confirmed, and a charge reversal was promised.

Basically he took advantage of the fact that the rental was prepaid through hotwire to charge me more. He ambiguously used sentences like "All you'll have to pay is... Great deal" but lied when I asked him if it was additional charges.

At return time, the same guy jumped on us. Bullying and trying to find damages on the car. I'd have appreciated if another rep had taken care of us then. When confronted about the scam, he excused himself for the "misunderstanding" with a snarky smile.

Thanksfully, after much computer fiddling, the charges were cancelled. We had to wait and have the entire family and luggages unloaded from one shuttle, but we had time before our flight so it worked out.

It was my first time with enterprise and probably the last. And probably with hotwire too, since with this broker you don't know with which company I'll end up renting from.

I want to think that this is this one guy that ruins it all and that this scam practice is not encouraged by Enterprise corporation. Maybe I've been unlucky and too credulous for once (After a long flight, I wasn't fresh enough to realize that it was to too good deal to be true! I became, suspicious next morning).

This morning MC AM riders report

It started very well since I woke up at 5:33 i.e. 2 minutes before my alarm. Also, it wasn't raining, (yet) despite the forecasts.

I assumed I had the time because of these two minutes, but I was too confident and I missed the 6:10 by a few. On the bright side I escorted Leander who was late too, but had no idea where to go. We Caught up with Tony and Eric who had a flat, and then a second one.

Oh it would have been nice to ride Hawk Hill with the group because it was windy... Even better this technique garantees nice PR on strava: http://yfrog.com/5klg6iqj

Anyway, the group at the top was big, I've never seen that many people on a morning ride. I think It was because of the Donuts and Coffee courtesy of Alex and Mission Cycling. This was the highlight of the ride: Thanks guys. I only took coffee because if I ever want to break the 8mn on this ride, I need to trim fat :-)

From there it only went downhill, literally: Rain, one flat tire in the mission, late nanny and one weird email. Looking forward to the next ride.

One of the best secret of San Francisco

You need a bike and enough will to wake up early. Reeeeallly early. But if you don't have a bike or you don't wake up early, it just doesn't work. Oh sure, you could come close, but you'd never reach the nirvana of climbing Conzelman Road (at your pace, no rush!) with a truly unique and stunning scenery.

I stole this picture from @alex_lod

via twitpic.com

And here is another one from Robert, taken this morning: 

 

The light and scenery changes very very fast - At least, when and it's not foggy :) So you don't get an idea of how it's like until you do it.

Totally. worth. it.

(wake up at 5:30, meeting point at ~6:30 on the top of Arguello)

In the US, you need a Master in Algebra to choose a Health plan

So this is decision time, aka open enrolment, aka big loss of time in the office.

This year, the insurance broker was pushing so hard on the new feature: HSA (Health Saving Account) that it was almost ridiculous. "FREE MONEY people!!!" (</blink>)

They brought a Geek in the meeting that demonstrated -- thanks to a spreadsheet -- that HSA is always better than other the other options. I've asked for the spreadsheet, but he responded, "I'm still working on it", which doesn't sound good. Too bad, because this is probably what would save me lot of time, and also could convince me that HSA is the new dope in Health-city.

But so far, I'm doubtful. I think spreadsheet-guy forgot to do the comparison with HMO in its demonstration. The total cost of Health this year for my entire family is around $2000 (*):  ($1200 employee cost + $600 copays&dentals + margin of error), and in all honnesty, I don't think it's beatable by HSA, even after free money and tax benefits, because when you start paying a baby visit something like:  

$115 for the visit + (3 shots = $90)

instead of 

$15 copay (except first year of life which is free)

then free money runs out very fast and you start tapping in the other type of money, aka the one I'd rather spend on vacations or this awesome Canon L lense.

I miss the french system, not to say it's cheap and awesome, because it is really not (Remember "sicko" the movie? Well... Moore was really inflating quite a few "facts") but at least I don't need to fire up a calculator, or a spreadsheet -- god forbid -- to make a simple decision.

 

(*) which is low by all figures given during the presentation. Even with pregnancy, the costs didn't go up that much. We paid $250 for the birth: the cost for one hospital admission (And I think we tricked them, because technically only Caroline was admitted, but then we had a bed for  Maelys too - $250 FREE MONEY)

ssh ControlMaster bonus benefit

I've added:

  ControlMaster auto
  ControlPath ~/.ssh/control-master/%r@%h:%p

to my ssh config yesterday, because I had multiple connections to the same host to open and close repeatedly. The nice benefit that I didn't know is that the connections stay up when my laptop goes to sleep.

Next: Alter my 'ProxyCommand's to make them benefit from these already open tcp connections.

edit: well, it looks like this is flacky, it doesn't always keep the connection alive, and I'm not sure what is the rule, so not so useful.

Letter to George

Dear George,

Yes, you are absolutely right, and I apologize. Like many aficionados I am excessively affected by my own preferences and habits, and it leads me to give buying advice that is indeed idiosyncratic. The suggestion that you jump in from the get-go with an investment of $3,195 is indeed preposterous (good word).

via theonlinephotographer.typepad.com

Airbag Helmet, futile or really useful?

Today is the first rainy commute of the winter in San Francisco. (Hopefully we'll still get some sunny days soon). Which reminded me this meme from a few years ago - Shame on the photographer.

 

maybe this poor bloke would  have preferred one of this new devices rather than an umbrella and a baseball hat (See more bike traps: here)