I found it refreshing that it occurred to me that I could put up my last post with the notion that someone else might be spared some headache later on down the road. I had it drilled into me at Google that the less you say online about anything work-related, the healthier your career would be. Sure, the official party line is "we're all openness and puppies and happy geek sunshine", the reality is much different when it comes to blogs. It didn't help that a new employee got canned because of his blog right before I started there. That set the mood for sure. And it instilled a little paranoia.

The official blogging policy (yes, there is one; I suspect it got put in place about 30 seconds after that guy was fired) is a strange document to read. When I first got there, I naturally wanted to post news, thoughts, stuff, etc, since people said they were interested and were always asking questions (many of which I couldn't answer). And by "post stuff", I mean in a very careful way: no posting secret stuff, financial stuff, private stuff, etc. But after reading the blogging policy, I realized that I should really not post any stuff at all.

Almost every paragraph in the blogging policy has the "written by an PR flack, approved by a corp lawyer" feel about it. And almost every section is heavily qualified. Sections start off with stuff like "While we realize that you want to share your thoughts about Google with the world on your personal blog, and while we -- as a company -- officially support that, we also realize that people sometimes say more than they intended..." (Or some such; it's been a while since I read it, and I only read it that once, so that isn't a direct quote or anything). Bottom line is that it's carefully written so you come away thinking that they aren't saying no, but they aren't exactly saying yes either. You ask yourself "Can I still write in my blog?" and take the policy's answer as a "yes", and it's all on you if you post about something besides the family vacation.

Basically, for work things, they say you can talk about what you had for lunch, but not who you had it with, what was discussed or for how long, etc. In other words, you can talk all you want, as long as it's about nothing at all interesting (which, I suppose, ought to suit most blogs just fine). Who wants to read a post about "Today I ate with John Doe #7; we had the quail's eyeballs and duck confit"?

So I could put up a blog post saying my name, title and the group I worked for, but I couldn't say anything about my job, as 97% of it dealt with proprietary stuff the names of which aren't even public knowledge. And there's nothing at all wrong with that. They have every right to restrict the flow of private information outwards. But the overall tone of the blogging policy there seemed very "Oh, hey, if it's not much trouble, consider just not posting anything at all, OK?"

For all the openness at the company, they are intensely and fiercely private. There's so much press (well, used to be, I guess) about new products and such that they were absolutely petrified about leaks. They have a very, very carefully crafted public image, and do not want anyone from inside contradicting that. Again, fair enough, and no hard feelings; I had no problems with their policy. But the net effect is that this site withered on the vine, as did my urge to write about anything personal. I had considered shutting it down entirely. If it weren't for the few times I had searched through it to find something, I probably would have. I wasn't afraid of losing my job, per se, it just that it was far easier to say nothing for no risk. Since work touched a lot of my life -- and why I was living in the bay area to begin with -- saying nothing meant that I wouldn't inadvertently stray into an HR/PR minefield.

Anyway, shortly after I thought "Hey, there's no other info on the web about that weird error, maybe I should put up a post about it!" came the thought "I wonder what else I could have written down that would have been helpful or interesting later?" I expect a few things.

Hopefully someone finds that last post useful. I know I get a lot of hits from people searching for stuff like that I've posted in the past (had a few emails thanking me, actually). I'll try to do more of it. (And I'll also try to get the comments thing back. I know both of you are just itching to leave comments...)

I recently has to extract some information from an Urchin 5 installation, munge it a little, and then save it. The tool one normally uses for this is a (not very well written) perl script provided by the Urchin folks: u5data_extractor.pl. When running it using the instructions at the top, you'll find that you can't run it. Or, rather, you can run it, but it won't produce any data for you. All you'll manage to get is a cryptic error, for which there aren't any explanations: "Urchin CGI Report. Error Encountered (1000).". As you can see from the Google search results, there's not a lot of help for explaining what a "1000" error is (until this page is indexed, I guess; at the time of writing there are only 3 results for that query). I suspect it's a generic error condition, sort of a "just couldn't make it happen, dude" thing, but I could be wrong. Irrelevant, since I got it to work.

Here are some tips:

• Make sure that you alter lines 47-51 to match your install. Double check the $report variable against the vid of the report you want to export (you can find out what vid value you need by going into the Urchin 5 GUI and mousing over the report name link on the left of the screen).

• Try not to look at lines 63 and 67. Trust that those date strings will wind up properly formatted. Just be sure to specify an --end param that is actually the same or after the --begin param, since funky dates will get you no valuable error message at all (not from the script or from Urchin itself).

• Change line 117 from this:

  if ((!defined $reportset) || ($reportset eq "")) { $reportset = "Standard"; }

  To this:

  if ((!defined $reportset) || ($reportset eq "")) { $reportset = "Basic_All"; }

• Change line 181 from this:

  $ENV{QUERY_STRING} = "vid=$report&bd=$begin&ed=$end&v=$max&rid=$rid&lang=$language&x=1&user=(admin)";

  To this:

  $ENV{QUERY_STRING} = "vid=$report&bd=$begin&ed=$end&v=$max&rid=$rid&lang=$language&x=1&user=(admin)&dt=4&dtc=0";

• Make sure you run the script as the same user who runs the Urchin 5 install. There's some weird permissions issue someplace, but I didn't bother to track it down.

Overall, don't bother reading the error messages (if any). In th course of getting it to work, I added a bunch more error checking to our version of the script since the default one is pretty awful in explaining what went wrong. If you do all of the above and it still isn't working, go view the report you want to extract in the GUI. Note the vid values, etc. You can also try setting/tweaking your shell's QUERY_STRING environment variable to what the script wants to use and calling urchin.cgi directly in order to quickly try new values.

The dodgy script, cryptic error message and lack of any information on the web caused me a few hours of unnecessary grief, and so anyone with a similar issue should be able to find some help here.

...it's Christmas Eve and I'm at work. I want to poo in someone's stocking. That is all.

So I finally learned what was wrong with my suppressor. The last time I shot it, I noticed that the mount (the rear part that screws on the the gun) was hitting the guide rod, turning the Sig into a single shot. (The slide couldn't go back as far as it needed to in order to cycle a round fully.) In other news, when I went to remove it after shooting, the mount stayed with the gun and the rest of the body screwed off. Not good. The things is supposed to stay completely sealed. In fact, taking it apart voids the warranty. I had a hell of a time removing it. I couldn't do it at the range since it was too hot to handle. Even when I got home, I had t use pliers. And even though I was extra gentle, used a cloth, etc, I still scratched the anodization. That made me unhappy.

I wrote Gemtech and asked what I could do about the single-shotedness and the detachable nature of the mount. Turns out that the thread depth of the Sig P220 Combat TB barrel is shorter than the more standard 1911 or Glock threaded barrels (0.450 overall length vs. 0.375" OAL, in fact). So it'll screw on to the Sig, but it'll screw on too far. You don't notice it until the first couple dozen shots, as the barrel and suppressor heat up during shooting and require you to tighten it periodically. Screwed on cold, that little difference in depth isn't felt, unless you were to put it on with a pipe wrench or something. Once it heats up and you keep screwing it on, you've got a single shot pistol.

They can put a new mount on for $50. Since I'll be going to a shorter one, I'll still be able to shoot it on the new threaded barrel I got for the 1911; it'll mean that there'll be a weensy little bit of thread exposed. Kinda weird the hoops you have to jump through to mail a suppressor, though. All manner of official business has to happen.

I'm happy about this, to be honest. It worried me that the mount screwed off. I don't want anyone to think I took it off intentionally in order to monkey around with the insides. I think that's illegal unless you're a Class 2 manufacturer. Also, making it easy to take off means that it'll be easy to put oil and such in there for added muffling goodness.

That would be me! Because I just got a call from the Scottsdale Gun Club and the ATF has approved the transfer papwork for my suppressor and it's ready and waiting for my tender embrace. It's a Christmas miracle!

I've got 16 minutes until I can reasonably get out of work, and I'm itching to run home, grab my Sig, and go straight back to the club to pop off a few (now much quieter) rounds.

Grrr.

The minutes are, like, totally not going by very quickly...

I know how I can pass the time. Searching the interwebs for a threaded barrel for my 1911A1!

If you are curious as to how we got into the financial mess we're in, this article is a fascinating read. It's by the guy who wrote Liar’s Poker, which is a semi-autobiographical account of his time spent as a bond trader in the late 80's.

Turns out he knew the guy who started the mortgage-backed securities market. And in this article, he goes back to talk to some of the players in the current market. He concludes that not much had changed -- until this last September when Wall Street changed forever. But it's a fascinating read about abject greed and pure contempt.

It's long, but well worth the read.

Take a look at this story: Google Pulls out of Yahoo. That, I must say, is a very fine piece of work. Google screwed Yahoo and Microsoft, and didn't have to spend a penny. Someone in the bizdev team over at MTV (that's "Mountain View" in googlespeak) is a very bright person. Bravo.

When MS made the offer to buy Yahoo, Google screams "Hey! Antitrust! Too much market power!" Then they offer to do ads and stuff for Yahoo in order to fend off MS. That torpedoes the MS-Yahoo deal, with Yang thinking the Google help will keep the creaking hulk alive. I mean, the stock's at $25/share, MS is only offering $31/share. "That's not much headroom to make up for, is it? Now that we have Google's search that actually works and ads that are easy to buy?" MS is seen as ineffectual, can't do search or ads, can't even buy a struggling internet company that does! "What can they do?!" the advertisers and shareholders ask. Yahoo stock drops like a rock, now Google says "Well, yeah, that'd be too much market share for us too" and backs out. Yahoo is left a wallflower, and has to go slinking back to the MS it once spurned. That's its only option right now. Nobody else wants to go on a date.

And now Yahoo will have to go to MS, unzip, and say please. It's their only option. Meanwhile Google is capturing more search and advertisers while Yahoo and MS sort out whatever the heck it is they think they need to do.

I bet we see MS come in with a $15/share offer. It's gonna be lowball, for sure. Yahoo has no other options, and they know it. If it needs to, MS can go to the board and have Yang tossed no problem. He's basically cost the stockholders $19 billion by not taking the first deal, and so he's hoping right now that he'll be around long enough to take the second one. Hell, he's probably trying to find a second one. He's trading his dignity for the chance to run what's left of the company he started. Sad, but true.

In any case, it'll happen for certain. Because you have in Yahoo a wounded fawn, trying to hobble its way to safety, and MS a slavering, ravenous beast that smells blood. I imagine Balmer heard the Google news and absolutely wet himself in greedy glee. He's doing his best Burns imitation right now, running around in his soaked-pits shirt, rubbing his mitts together, salivating at thoughts of conquest -- at half the price no less! The man has a permachubby or he's impotent, I'm telling you. It's obvious what has to happen. The man's a power-mad brute. He can't not acquire Yahoo, in order to see his enemies crushed before him and hear the lamentations of its women. It's like the only thought he has rolling around in that shiny noggin' of his.

It's going to be hilarious when MS comes storming into Sunnyvale, showing them all how to use Windows Live SQL 2010 Express or whatever the hell they're calling it. The sales and marketing crowd at Yahoo will love it, since they'll get to run around with a monster budget doing useless things, and tell everyone to bow down to them because they work at MS (I've met a bunch of MS's S&M people; bigger prima donnas I've not seen). But I bet 1/3 of the Yahoo engineers are gone within three months. Half are fixing up resumes in that time for certain. It's more than failure, or having to work for "the enemy". There's a certain class of people that can't morally work for Microsoft. I'm not sure I could, to tell the truth.

If you're a geek, the next 6-9 months is going to be a really, really bad time to look for work in the valley. I'm really glad I got out when I did.

We just bought a new house! Woot! Tess has the pics up on her flickr account.

I really want to move in...

I thought I was a dork because I spent all summer of my 14th year writing an Asteroids game clone in BASIC on my VIC-20. Well, I've got nothing on Dmitri Gaskin.

That's just scary.

Sarah Palin is famous for a lot of things. One of the things she's becoming known for, I think, is the stupendously ridiculous dumbass names she's bestowed on her precious snowflakes: Track, Trig, Bristol, Willow, and Piper. How precious is that? Don't you just want to eat them up?

Imagine Sarah Palin is your mother. After you've gotten over the horror of a life spent having to look at her suburbian clown-face your entire life, think more specifically: What would your name have been had she been your mother? What twee nonsense would you have had to put up with?

Well, wonder no more, because you can consult the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator.

By the way, if you or you're loved one is due soon, you can hit reload over and over on that page and grab a whole huge load of retarded names from which to choose your baby's name. Having your kids ridiculed and beaten ceaselessly throughout their formative years will only serve to make them stronger, both mentally and physically. You could turn 'em into veritable moose-shootin' mountain children with the proper name! We know ladies are copying her hairstyle, glasses and all the rest of that. Why not go full-on Hockey Mom and name the little shaver Piccalilli or Turbo instead of Julie or Michael? They're sure to be the most special kids in all the world, and they really do deserve a name that fits the one-of-a-kind status they'll almost certainly achieve.

In case anyone was wondering, my name really should have been Stinger Assassin. I feel somehow cheated I wound up with plain, old "Bill". How boring is that?