Obfuscation on social networks seems pointless to me.

When you friend request me on Facebook, but don’t have a profile picture, real name (or English name), nor any personal details; how am I supposed to know who you are? Sometimes I can guess based on mutual friends, but that only works like 6% of the time. And I admit: I have some Facebook friends whose real identity is a mystery to me.*

* “Why’d you accept those friend requests?” you may ask. Yeah, good question. Probably says something about my need to not offend.

Obfuscation on Facebook defeats the purpose of joining Facebook. It results in the worst of both worlds: the machine can still track and analyze your every posting, but your real world friends won’t know who you are.  I say, fully participate or don’t bother.

Kinda related rant: There’s no real privacy online. I welcome the maturation of behavioral tracking. I look forward to the day ads are always relevant; becoming content I cared about, instead of intrusions that annoy me. It would make my web surfing a lot more convenient. (And if I didn’t want that convenience, that’s what Chrome’s porn incognito mode is for.)

In A People’s History of the United States (read online), published in 2003, Howard Zinn wrote a chapter called “The Coming Revolt of the Guards.”

That essay could be, should be, the rallying cry of the Occupation.

The wealth disparity is glaring, and it has grave social consequences:

One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth.

The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another: small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and unskilled. These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country.

It’s true. One percent of the people own more than a third of America’s wealth; the next nine percent richest own another 39%; and the remaining 28% of wealth is owned by the bottom 90% of the population. Charts and data.

The middle 9%, those in the 90-99% percentile in wealth, are the people Zinn calls the “guards of the system.”

In a highly developed society, the Establishment cannot survive without the obedience and loyalty of millions of people who are given small rewards to keep the system going: the soldiers and police, teachers and ministers, administrators and social workers, technicians and production workers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, transport and communications workers, garbage men and firemen.

These people–the employed, the somewhat privileged–are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.

It’s the middle class, the professionals and homeowners, who are giving steam to the movement. The highly trained individuals who have been laid off, these are the people out on the streets.  They feel expendable, and realize how far from the 1% they really are.

The Occupation was inevitable, but globalization and the Internet has hastened its arrival.

The new conditions of technology, economics, and war, in the atomic age, make it less and less possible for the guards of the system-the intellectuals, the home owners, the taxpayers, the skilled workers, the professionals, the servants of government–to remain immune from the violence (physical and psychic) inflicted on the black, the poor, the criminal, the enemy overseas. The internationalization of the economy, the movement of refugees and illegal immigrants across borders, both make it more difficult for the people of the industrial countries to be oblivious to hunger and disease in the poor countries of the world.

We should have seen this coming.  The discontentment in America has been spreading upwards.

There is evidence of growing dissatisfaction among the guards. We have known for some time that the poor and ignored were the nonvoters, alienated from a political system they felt didn’t care about them, and about which they could do little. Now alienation has spread upward into families above the poverty line. These are white workers, neither rich nor poor, but angry over economic insecurity, unhappy with their work, worried about their neighborhoods, hostile to government… thus open to solutions from any direction, right or left.

This is why the Occupation matters. It’s why politicians should pay attention–the 99% are looking for solutions from anyone, not just the Democrats.

The system, in its irrationality, has been driven by profit to build steel skyscrapers for insurance companies while the cities decay, to spend billions for weapons of destruction and virtually nothing for children’s playgrounds, to give huge incomes to men who make dangerous or useless things, and very little to artists, musicians, writers, actors. Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes.

The threat of unemployment, always inside the homes of the poor, has spread to white-collar workers, professionals. A college education is no longer a guarantee against joblessness’, and a system that cannot offer a future to the young coming out of school is in deep trouble. If it happens only to the children of the poor, the problem is manageable; there are the jails. If it happens to the children of the middle class, things may get out of hand. The poor are accustomed to being squeezed and always short of money, but in recent years the middle classes, too, have begun to feel the press of high prices, high taxes.

Is now the time for radical change? Is that why the protesters aren’t behind a specific piece of legislation, but rather is advocating a wholesale change in national priorities and attitudes?

With the Establishment’s inability either to solve severe economic problems at home or to manufacture abroad a safety valve for domestic discontent, Americans might be ready to demand not just more tinkering, more reform laws, another reshuffling of the same deck, another New Deal, but radical change. Let us be Utopian for a moment so that when we get realistic again it is not that “realism” so useful to the Establishment in its discouragement of action, that “realism” anchored to a certain kind of history empty of surprise.

This part gave me goosebumps for how aptly it describes what is going on around the country, and for reminding me what the protesters really want. (Map of cities under occupation.)

But when such a movement took hold in hundreds of thousands of places all over the country it would be impossible to suppress, because the very guards the system depends on to crush such a movement would be among the rebels. It would be a new kind of revolution, the only kind that could happen, I believe, in a country like the United States….

There is a chance that such a movement could succeed in doing what the system itself has never done-bring about great change with little violence. This is possible because the more of the 99 percent that begin to see themselves as sharing needs, the more the guards and the prisoners see their common interest, the more the Establishment becomes isolated, ineffectual. The elite’s weapons, money, control of information would be useless in the face of a determined population.

And finally, here’s the call to action to me, as a part of the bourgeois class:

We readers and writers of books have been, for the most part, among the guards. If we understand that, and act on it, not only will life be more satisfying, right off, but our grandchildren, or our great grandchildren, might possibly see a different and marvelous world.

I’m hardly a Machead, but I have tremendous respect for Steve Jobs and his contributions to humanity. He created two companies that revolutionized several industries. Pixar and feature animation. Apple — personal computing, mobile Internet, music distribution, more?

In 2005, Jobs gave the Stanford commencement speech. I remember listening to the speech  in the summer of 2005, and feeling challenged and anxious. I was approaching my 30th birthday; the self-imposed deadline for figuring out what I wanted to do when I grew up.  It was a year before we launched Wise Bread and two years before I quit my day job.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

Rereading that speech today, six years older, another part speaks to me: “Stay Foolish.”

Thanks, Steve. Rest in peace. We’ll miss you.

This article on OPEN Forum about social media friendly business cards prompted me to create a personal QR code with my contact details.

Here’s a decent list of QR code generators.

A lot didn’t work for me — scanning the code with i-nigma reader app resulted in garbled or missing data that I couldn’t import into the iphone contacts. The i-nigma QR generator did work, producing the above code that has a vCard embedded. So you can scan it and import into your contacts list. However, the i-nigma generator is pretty limited compared to the others on the list.

I don’t know if I’ll add a QR code to my next business card, but this was kinda fun.

I moved into my new place this past weekend.  Still unpacking and discovering the neighborhood.  Unfortunately, I got sick right after the move, but that hasn’t stopped me from trying out the restaurants and asian supermarkets in Chinatown.

One of my primary motives for moving here was to be closer to good food, so I hit up a chinese friend who used to live in downtown LA.  Here’s his take on eating in Chinatown.

—–

Here are some good eats around your neighborhood.

I had a foodie coworker who loved this sandwich place (I thought it was just ok):

http://www.yelp.com/biz/mendocino-farms-los-angeles

The grand central market is a good place to pick up cheap food and fresh groceries.  There is this Korean grocer towards the front of the market who has the freshest fruits at low prices:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/grand-central-market-los-angeles

My foodie coworker gave rave reviews for their Pupusas:

http://laist.com/2009/03/19/recession_obsession_the_pupusa.php

There’s a Farmer’s Market at the Bank of America building (one block north of McCormick’s).  It has some good food.  My favorites are the Hawaiian Chicken (sooo salty and spicy) and the bacon-wrapped hot dogs.  The market comes to BOA on Fridays.  The same market also sets up shop in front of the Central Library, but I forget what day it is:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/downtown-la-farmers-market-los-angeles

The best sushi IMHO is R23 (though I’m no expert, YMMV):

http://www.yelp.com/biz/r23-los-angeles

Thousand Cranes has a cool roof garden restaurant.  A nice place to take the parents to for brunch:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/a-thousand-cranes-los-angeles

All the white folks love this Yang Chow place.  It is ok.  It is slightly better than Hop Li.  A good place to take white people who aren’t ready for Sam Woo:

http://www.yelp.com/biz/yang-chow-los-angeles

My favorite thing at Sam Woo is the BBQ crispy fried noodles.  Mmmmm soo good.

People will tell you to try Water Grill or the Patina inside the Disney Concert Hall.  They’re overhyped, don’t waste your money.

After a while, I just ended up driving to Monterey Park for food.  Chinatown chinese food is kind of substandard.

After upgrading a site with complex CCK node types, I ran into this error on the node type’s manage fields page:

This content type has inactive fields. Inactive fields are not included in lists of available fields until their modules are enabled.

It went on to list every Computed Field and FeedField I was using as inactive, even though those two modules were enabled and all updates had been run.  Googling the problem found lots of people who have run into the error.  The suggested solutions vary wildly in their complexity.

I decided to try disabling and re-enabling the modules responsible for the inactive fields.  Re-enabling the CCK related modules fixed the issue.

Some people are seeing the same error for non-CCK modules and/or re-enabling the CCK modules didn’t fix their problem.  This d.o comment links to a bunch of solutions.

I’m not a programmer so I’m especially happy when I can contribute to Drupal meaningfully.

I submitted a patch today to add caching to the Whois module.

http://drupal.org/node/698850

Full Tilt’s new “Rush Poker” feature is how online poker is meant to be played.  My reaction to it is:

zomg!!

In a nutshell, there is no waiting time in Rush Poker.  As soon as you fold, you will be seated with a new set of 8 other players and dealt a hand.  When you sit down, you’re playing in a pool of hundreds of players that get reshuffled on every deal.

How this affects strategy

1. Everyone’s super tight now.

When there’s no boredom, and the next hand is just 1 second away, there’s no reason to play trash or mediocre hands.  There’s no need for fancy play or overanalysis to keep your boredom at bay (and destroy your EV).

2. Fundamental poker is winning poker.

• Fold everything.
• If you’re compelled to play — like you’re dealt a pocket pair or AK — be bold. Make pot sized bets. Forget tweaking the exact amount to bet*, just hit the “pot size” button.

3. Stealing the blinds is profitable.

Having said all that in point #2, I’m now encouraging you to steal the blinds. If you’re on the button, cutoff or CO+1, and no one has limped or raised, make the standard raise.  There’s a good chance the blinds will fold.

4. Showdowns mean big money.

So if everyone is folding all the time, then only premium hands are being played.  That means that if a hand has two or more callers, you can expect it to be a big pot.  Big pots.

There’s a good chance of a dramatic showdown.

• AA vs KK
• Sets vs Two Pair

How this affects poker in general

Fish now have more fun while losing more money faster.

This feature is going to absolutely revolutionize online poker.

You ain’t seen nothing yet in terms of online poker revenues. Everyone’s going to make more money because (a) more hands are being played per hour and (b) the usability increase makes people (especially fish) more likely to play and play more hands.

The good players are going to get richer, faster.  Playing two tables, I can do 500 hands in an hour.  That used to be three full days at the office when only live poker was available.

The pros are going to absolutely kill it.

The amateurs are going to be a lot more entertained.  If I can play 15 minutes and be dealt 60 hands (that’s equivalent to 1 hour normal speed online or 2 hours at a live table), I’m more likely to play. A lot more likely to play.  10 minutes here*, 3 hours there. It adds up. Poker fiends like me are going to spend more money. (Whether the amount spent will be worth the entertainment value is up to each person.)

* When’s the Android app coming? I figure Apple won’t allow gambling on the iPhone but Android is all open and stuff, right?

Full Tilt is going to make ridiculous amounts of money this year.  Think of all the rake! This feature lets people play more hands per hour and more fun to play those hands. A gold rush of rake.

Just watch Poker Stars and the rest scramble to catch up. I would be shocked if online poker revenues didn’t grow 20x in the next 5 years. That’s without the U.S. legalizing online poker. With U.S. regulation* — phew. I wouldn’t be surprised at 100x industry revenues.

* So much taxable revenue. Congress needs to get its head out of its ass regarding online poker regulation.

My mom gave me a bottle of this Crispy Prawn Chilli she got from Malaysia.  It is so good.  I can’t say enough to express how good it is, but I’ll try anyway.

Tean's Crispy Prawn Chili (front)

It’s not too hot.  There’s a perfect mix of saltiness, sweetness, and spiciness. It’s so good, and not so spicy, that I’ve been reduced to eating it straight from the bottle as a quick little snack.  So good.

It’s got great texture with these little crispy bits.  I don’t know what the crispy bits are.  They’re the size and shape of deep fried roe (the small kind), but have a crunchiness that reminds me of fried chicken batter.

I haven’t seen it at any local supermarkets, but I’ll keep looking out for it.  I did find this website that sells it for less than $5 a bottle.  Haven’t tried buying from them, but seeing how quickly I’m going through the bottle I have, I’m guessing I’ll be giving this vendor a try in a next couple of weeks.

So good. Go get a bottle today. (More pics after the jump.)

Tean's Crispy Prawn Chili (close up)

Tean's Crispy Prawn Chili (back1)

Tean's Crispy Prawn Chili (back2)

Tean's Crispy Prawn Chilli Barcode

I bought and setup Kayako as our internal issue ticketing system this week.  Ran into a couple of small bumps during the install — I was missing Zend and mCrypt.  But otherwise, installation was smooth.  The Kayako manual is pretty good.

(Though it sucks that there is only a PDF version of the manual.  Come on!  HTML version please.  Even better, a wiki. There’s so much good stuff in the forums, but you need to know exactly what you’re looking for to find it.)

How to Install Zend Optimizer

Installing Zend Optimizer was crazy easy.

1. Download Zend optimizer package. You just need the runtime.

2. Extract. Find the right .so version for your PHP version. Use “php –version” to get your version.

3. Copy the .so someplace reasonable.  I created /etc/php5/extensions to store extensions, and dumped ZendOptimizer.so in there.

4. Edit php.ini to load it.  On my Ubuntu box, that’s at /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini. Add this line to the end (changing the full path to the .so as necessary).

zend_extension=/etc/php5/extensions/ZendOptimizer.so

5. Restart apache.

$ /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

How to Install mCrypt for PHP5

Again, easy with apt.

$ apt-get install php5-mcrypt

$ /etc/init.d/apache2 restart