Bloxes Rule

I just wrote a post for the Google Blog about some of the cool things we've done in the Chicago office with Bloxes. Check it out.

What Happens When You're Out Of The Office for Two Weeks?

You get, um, downgraded:



This was on my desk when I got back to the office on Monday morning. I think it was absolutely hilarious, and even better, it was a Mac SE, which was my very first Mac that I got back in 1991!

Thanks to Trow for pulling the outstanding prank, and especially for telling me where he hid my 30" monitor afterwards.

Datacenter sticker spotted in New York Times

My friend Steve spotted one of my datacenter stickers on the laptop of my colleague T.V. Raman, who is the subject of an article about web accessibility, among other things. T.V. has really done some amazing work to make the web more accessible for everyone, not just the blind and the vision-impaired.

T.V. and I started at Google on the same day and worked across the hall from each other for my first few weeks (until I returned to Chicago). He's an all-around great guy, an emacs guru (he wrote emacspeak, and
can never be found far from his yellow lab, Hubbell, who is a real sweetheart (be sure to ask permission before petting Hubbell though--it's best not to pet a work dog while their harness is on and they're "working").

Congrats on the press coverage, T.V.!

Budweiser & Clamato

I saw this at the grocery tonight:



How plowed do you have to be to drink this? I can hear it now: "Ya know what would really make this crappy beer taste truly awesome? Why, the refreshing taste of clam!"

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Graphics Cards

As if Street View for Rome wasn't enough, now the Google Earth team has rolled out an ancient Rome layer:



I've often said that I wished I could redo college with Google Search, but I'd like to amend that to include Google Earth as well. Please? It's like flying through the model of Ancient Rome during the time of Constantine that I made the pilgrimage out to the Museo della Civilta Romana in EUR to visit.

Anyway, get ready to time travel, but you'll need a pretty hefty system ("Dual-Core 2.0Ghz CPU + 3GB RAM + High End GPU with 512 MB RAM Suggested") to get there.

A Plea for New Orleans

I was a guest on Voluntourism.org today, and we talked about having ApacheCon in New Orleans, why we had it there, and how we incorporated Voluntourism into the conference. ApacheCon chose New Orleans this year for a number of reasons, but one of them was an email that I wrote to the Apache Members almost two years ago in an attempt to help them understand why New Orleans needed (and still needs) all the economic stimulation she can get. I read this mail on the show today and agreed to post it on my blog, so here it is:


----------------------------------------------
From: Brian W. Fitzpatrick
Date: Wed, Dec 27, 2006 at 1:16 AM
Subject: A plea for New Orleans for ApacheCon 2008
To: Members of the Apache Software Foundation

As a native New Orleanian who just returned from New Orleans (~3
hours ago), I'd like to strongly advocate that we have ApacheCon
2008 in New Orleans, and for the following reasons:

1. New Orleans provides plenty of entertaining things to do in the
evenings for you and your friends. Things don't close at 2AM. or 3
for that matter.
2. It's within walking distance of the French Quarter (about 2 blocks
to Bourbon Street).
3. It's next to Harrah's casino (I didn't go in this time, but
pre-hurricane, I found it kind of dumpy).
4. The food. It's amazing. Red beans and rice anyone? Gumbo? Po-boys?
5. Coffee and beignets, mmm mmm mmm.
6. Other cool trips you can make over the weekend: River plantations
tour, the zoo is amazing, the aquarium is awesome, take a streetcar
ride down St. Charles and see some of the beautiful French and Spanish
architecture of the Garden District. Take a riverboat cruise on the
Natchez.

I could go on and on and on, but the main reason that I want us to
have AC 2008 in New Orleans is this:

While the French Quarter (and most other neighborhoods along the river
which are actually above sea level and didn't flood) is still a pretty
hopping place with food and drink aplenty, New Orleans is still
suffering greatly from hurricane Katrina and the levee breach that
filled the city with water. While I was down for Christmas visiting
my family in Metairie (a suburb), I took a drive through the city
proper, and I was devastated.

For 16 months now I've been watching video footage of New Orleans with
suitably awed newscasters repeating over and over that "you can't
possibly understand the devastation that this city underwent without
coming here to see for yourself."

Well, let me say it once again: You can't possibly understand the
devastation that this city underwent without coming here to see
for yourself.

I drove through the Lakeview neighborhood (closest to the floodwall
breach), and SIXTEEN months later, it still looks like Beirut
on a bad day. I'd guess that about one house in 50 is inhabited.
City streets are so bad that you can barely manage 15mph in a rental
car. Street signs are mostly non-existent. Houses are gutted,
abandoned, and falling in on themselves. What used to be a grand old
neighborhood is now so much bulldozer fodder.

Mid-City, where I went to high school, is better, but not by much.
The closer you get to the river, the better things get, but they're
still not great. In the Central Business District, the Hyatt by the
Superdome is still abandoned. The New Orleans Center next to it, a
shopping mall/office building, stands decrepit with broken windows a
daily reminder of the hell that happened here [Remember, I wrote this
in December of 2006 -Fitz].

Metairie, where I grew up, is better, but it's still crippled--FEMA
trailers still litter each city block. To get a feeling for what it's
like, take the neighborhood you grew up in and rip out every 3rd tree.
Park a trailer on the front lawn of every 7th house. Leave 1 house in
20 abandoned. Leave 1 house in 35 gutted and abandoned. Now burn
down and remove 1 house in 40. Demolish 1 house in 50. Lean fences
over precariously, buckle sidewalks, and board up storefronts. It's
truly heartbreaking to see, and this is SIXTEEN months later
(and believe me, my family lucked out big time with minimal
damage to their homes).

So what's the point of this long rambling email? New Orleans needs
economic help. They need you, me, or anyone to show up and spend
money. They need anything and everything that they can get. Sure
they've got their problems with selfishness, greed, and corruption
(every city does--New Orleans is just famous for it :-). It will
never be the same, but I think it would be nice for the ASF to help
out "The City that Care Forgot" and have a good time in the process.

Laissez les bon temps roullez!

-Fitz

Vote!

I'm totally fascinated with numbers and statistics, and I've been glued to FiveThirtyEight.com for the last month since it follows all the polls, but today's poll is the only poll that matters, so get out there and vote!

The Dude Abides

For Halloween this year, I went as The Dude (Click for larger versions):



But what made it really great, was the fact that Walter dropped by to hang out:



That's Jim, our esteemed director of sales for Chicago.

I think we really tied the room together.

Street View hits Italy!

Google Street View for Italy just launched and It's giving me a serious case of Rome-sickness. The official blog post has some great views of the city, so I'll share a few of my favorite non-historic places. For starters, I can see a view down the street to the John Felice Rome Center where I lived, studied, and worked for three years:


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(You can click to zoom or drag to look around on all of these shots)

The "Green Bar" where we used to go for coffee and chocolate croissants:


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OK, I can't resist--here's my favorite church (architecture-wise),
The Basilica of St. Giovanni in Laterano:


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And Marie's favorite,
The Basilica of St. Maria Maggiore


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I could go on for hours, so I'll close out with the greatest gelateria in the world, Cremeria Monteforte (run by my good friend Roberto):


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Drag the image around 180 degrees to see that it's facing the side of the Pantheon. Oh man, now I'm seriously craving a big cup of Roberto's Cioccolato Semifreddo.

A Message and a Messenger

If you've had enough hearing about politics and this presidential election, you can stop reading now

Most of you who know me well know that while I sit firmly on the left side of the political bus, I don't go around beating a drum about it, and that I think that most politicians are crooks and liars. So it's exceptionally uncommon for me to find a politician that I respect, believe, and am willing to listen to.

First, as a speaker who has given over 100 talks in the last 8 years, I really appreciate a good orator (and can barely sit through a bad one). Barack Obama is a dynamic speaker who can connect with people on an emotional level, but more importantly, he conveys a message of inspiration and unity. Both of these messages have been sorely lacking in our country's leadership for the past eight years.

With that introduction, take a look at the last six minutes of a campaign speech he gave in Canton Ohio:

At no time in my life has this country needed someone like Barack Obama as much as we do today.

Take a good look, kids: this is our next president.

Everybody Should Have One

The Second Edition of Version Control with Subversion has finally hit the bookshelves. Ben and Mike and I enjoy working together, but we're all happy to see this finally put to bed.



If you're a fan of the dead trees, you can buy a hardcopy or if you're a fan of whizzing electrons, download a free copy.

I hope you like it--enjoy!

PS Please don't tell my Grandmother that the book's not actually about turtles--she'll be really disappointed if she finds out that it's about "that crazy computer stuff."

Life Imitates Art

My favorite web comic wrote this cartoon.

A short time later, my favorite online video site did this.

I tried it out and practically fell over laughing. Go ahead and try it yourself.

Further proof that the folks over at YouTube rock. I love it!