Randal L. Schwartz

On turning "30"

nobody@vox.com(Randal Schwartz) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 14:13:58 -0800

Well, not actually 30. Today's my birthday, and I'm turning 30 only if you measure it in hexadecimal, a milestone I've been looking forward to for the past 6 years. (It gives away the secret if you say "I'm 2D years old".)

It's not only my birthday, but it's also the birthday of my brother Russ, exactly one year younger than me (and always has been... imagine that!).

It's also a famous day for people who are at least a bit older than me: Kennedy was shot on my second birthday, and my brother's first birthday, so we hear a lot about that on our birthday as various major anniversaries kick in.

Today is also the birthday of my "twin sister", Mariel Hemingway. After discovering that she shares my exact date of birth from the old Internet Movie Database, I had called her my "twin sister" on my web homepage since from nearly the beginning of having a website for stonehenge.com. It took a couple of years, but I found an address that happened to reach her, and she sent me an autographed picture of her, and I sent her husband an autographed copy of Learning Perl. For a few years, we exchanged birthday cards, and then the address started bouncing so I left it alone.

Mariel Hemingway Twitter Exchange 2

Until this year. I noticed Ms Hemingway was on Twitter, so I started tweeting about my "twin sister". Apparently, she noticed, and responded kindly. And if she's reading this, thank you. :)

Looking back, it's been a really rough year for me. Brought to the brink of financial ruin, losing close relatives and longtime friends, and my own medical struggles, have all really tested my endurance. I have made it clear to my longtime friends though that the stress of this past year has easily exceeded the stress I felt in 1995 during my arrest and felony conviction. Yes, "a new high in lows".

And in a typical "Randal" fashion, right alongside those pains, I've had some pretty amazing things happen, with the success of FLOSS Weekly and my re-entry into the Smalltalk world. It's all Mr Toad's Wild Ride constantly, and yet there I times I say "I wouldn't have it any other way".

I'm taking Mom on her second cruise in a few weeks... a nice run down into the eastern Carribean on Insight Cruise sailing # 50. This will mark her first visit to the east coast, and her first time in an airplane in (gad) 50 years. She also had to get her first passport ever. She's excited, and can't wait. Of course, having a seasoned traveller like me along has been very helpful for her... but she comes up with those questions I didn't realize anyone would ever have. :)

For those of you who have stood by me and continue to do in my times of trouble, thank you. For those of you who think my life is just fine all the time, please pay attention. :)

And we continue... one day at a time.

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I'm on fire, bay-bee!

nobody@vox.com(Randal Schwartz) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:53:40 -0800

In the past 10 days, I've delivered a talk I call "Karaoke for Fun and Profit" not once, but twice, at two separate "ignite" events: IgnitePortland and IgniteSalem.

I pitched the talk a bit as an afterthought... I had originally pitched a talk about FLOSS Weekly to IgnitePortland, which had been rejected as too self serving. The karaoke idea came quickly in response, but once accepted, there was the dread of having to actually write a talk that fulfilled the over-the-top promises I had made. And once the Portland talk was confirmed, Salem quickly asked me to do the same thing in their venue, to which I agreed as a "rehearsal" for Portland.

I have lots of practice delivering short, medium, and long talks to classrooms around the world. That wasn't the problem here. The problem was having slides that auto-advanced every 15 seconds for five minutes, and had to be frozen two full weeks before my performance, just a few days after I had been accepted. This was all new, and required a different thinking to generate. I managed to pull it off though, being warmly received in both venues.

You can watch the IgniteSalem video (which was shot on my brand-new Canon 7D in 1080p mode), or the IgnitePortland performance (as published officially by the event). Or both, and compare.

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My analysis of the FOSSLC debate: "Which Open Source License is Best?"

nobody@vox.com(Randal Schwartz) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:26:26 -0700

I was asked to judge a debate on the merits of the EPL, GPL, and BSD licenses. Note that I'm not judging the licenses themselves, but rather how well each representative presented their position.

In brief, David Maxwell made the best case for BSD with 16 net points. In second place, Mike Milinkovich representing the EPL came in with 14 13 net points. And last (and least) was Matt Asay, representing the GPL with an embarassing negative 4 points. (Matt's score would have been far better if he had at least once connected "more people use GPL" with "and thus GPL is better", but he never made that connection.)

Congratulations to all three debaters! Many interesting points were made. Here's my notes, which might be a bit cryptic, but they're meaningful to me, and that's what matters. {grin}

▼ EPL - Mike Milinkovich

• +1 argued that we're all really on the same side (more agreement than disagreement)

• +1 quoted Simon Phipps

• -1 irrelevant reference to "universal donor/recipient" phrase

• +1 defined "weak copyleft"

• +1 quoted Danese Cooper about lawyers

• +1 good description of EPL

• +1 gave commercial examples of EPL

• +1 EPL is written as a legal document, but -1 in describing how that applied

• +1 promoted why EPL covers patents as well, but -1 for not explaining it

• +1 EPL is good for various business models

• +1 for pointing out lies, damn lies, statistics, comparing project count vs usage

• +1 for differentiating commercialization of open source vs using open source for goals

• +1 for saying EPL provides similar protection to GPL in terms of permanent protection

• +1 even redhat ships EPL code

• +1 for clarifying the science problem, explaining how GPL requires credit/ownership to flow uphill

• +1 for describing why governments (not US) should use EPL

• +1 think through the choices you make (be informed)

▼ GPL - Matt Asay

• +1 redhat is making money with GPL

• -1 "GPL is most dominant license" - who cares... point not made

• -1 "it's about trust" but failed to present why it's more trustable

• +1 "it's about sharing", simple to understand

• +1 describing how people who choose to want their code always open can use this

• +1 that it's about distribution, not about internal usage

• -1 "more code under GPL" - again, without justifying why "more popular" = "better"

• +1 explaining why it's good for business

• -1 for using "bludgeoning the competition" without describing what that means

• -1 for again relying on "more people use GPL"

• -1 for some weird "movie reviewer analogy"

• -1 for again going to "popularity" without justifying it

• -1 for comparing "giving away software" to "trusting someone you loan your car to"

• -1 for bad analogy with science (confuses use with attribution)

• +1 for pointing out that individuals choose GPL knowing that their software not being hijacked

• -1 for again using "most popular" as justification

▼ BSD - David Maxwell

• +1 explaining why we need licenses ("public domain" might not even mean anything)

• +1 for explaining some history (oldest license of three)

• +1 for reading the entire license

• +1 for pointing out that the other two would not have enough time to do that :)

• +1 for describing how complex licenses (GPL, EPL) are more frequently misunderstood by normal people

• +1 for not being a lawyer :)

• +1 for describing how BSD is more trusting than GPL

• +1 for explaining concern of using GPL with contractors

• +1 for pointing out the redefinition of "contributor" in the EPL

• +1 for pointing out that the freedom is granted "to the software" in GPL, whuh!

• +1 for pointing out VHS vs Beta as "winner is not always best"

• +1 for pointing out that the scripting languages all use some form of BSD license

• +1 for pointing out BSD forks do share a lot of code back and forth

• +1 for pointing out how widespread BSD-licensed code is used (Apple, etc)

• +1 for explaining the sour grapes of "getting ripped off by commercial" being without justification

• +1 for providing BSD as alternative for EPL for government items

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Happy 69th Birthday, Mom!

nobody@vox.com(Randal Schwartz) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:24:07 -0700

Mom eats her birthday dessert
Originally uploaded by randal-schwartz.

Mom visited me (down from Olympia Washington) for her 69th birthday. Together, we visited her childhood home in Portland (on Gladstone Street) and her next home, my childhood home in Gladstone (near Portland Avenue).

Amazingly enough, without any advance notice, the current residents of both homes let us come in for a quick tour, to see what had changed. It was weird... I hadn't been in either home as an adult. Everything seemed so small!

Afterwards, we stopped at TeBo's in Gladstone for their famous Strawberry Shortcake.

Happy birthday, mom!

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Commanding the crowd

nobody@vox.com(Randal Schwartz) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:55:39 -0700

I had a dream a few nights ago.

I don't remember most of my dreams, so this one stuck out, because I remembered it. Maybe it was also because I woke up "in the middle" of this part of the dream, but I can't tell.

I don't remember the exact means by which I ended up in the situation, but somehow, I was backstage of a large performance hall. One of those halls that has the stage in the center, surrounded by 20,000 fans—I think they call that "theatre in the round" style. I was probably remembering a recent Dane Cook comedy bit from HBO, actually.

The evening was a series of comedians or inspirational speakers... I wasn't sure which. Four or five, each with 45 minute slots. I had some role backstage... maybe technical, maybe just gopher, not sure.

But somehow, there'd been a mixup. At the last minute, one of the presenters in the middle slot couldn't go on. I don't recall whether they were tied up, or confused or what. But they weren't there.

The director of the event came over to me, looked me straight in the eye, and said "are you ready? you've done presentations in front of large crowds, right? I need a replacement. You have 90 seconds... get ready."

As a professional presenter, I can assure you, this is about as far from ideal as I would want. No preparation, no rehearsal, needing to fill a 45-minute slot with material for an audience that hadn't been fully analyzed, except that they were all (what's the common element?)... uh, human. Oh great, I thought, quickly noting that my usual technical jokes would fall on flat ears.

But here's the interesting part of this dream. I went through about a minute of terror, about 30 seconds of controlled breathing ("inhale ... one ... two.... exhale... three... four"), and then a great sense of calm... at peace. I found a place where I could trust myself to say whatever the audience needed me to say to be in rapport with them, without any specific idea of what I would say.

I donned the wireless Countryman headset, did a quick soundcheck, and walked out into the lights, onto the stage.

"Ladies and Gentleman... what I'm about to say might make many of you get up out of your seats and leave for the next 45 minutes, but bear with me, hear me out... I have something to say that might just surprise you..."

And nobody moved. The room got quiet.

And I remember an ear-to-ear grin. I had this crowd of 20k in my hand. And I knew that whatever I did for the next 45 minutes, they would talk about, twitter about, blog about, debate about, and meditate about for the next week or two. Or maybe forever.

It was just then... I woke up.

So what did I say? What did I talk about?

And could I have done that in real life?

One wonders.

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Holley Thompson - 29 Dec 1962 to 22 Mar 2009

nobody@vox.com(Randal Schwartz) — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:18:31 -0700

I've been meaning to catch up with my friend Holley, whom I first met around 1990 when she started handling my travel arrangements for my frequent business trips. The short "I'm flying to New York" conversations got longer as we chatted and flirted, until I eventually figured out that I should accept her invitation to go skiing with her someday.

In my second year of skiing, she needed a tenth person to round out a GS Racing team. She said it didn't matter that I was still snowplowing down the green-level runs: any tenth warm body would do. She was desperate to get to the finals in Keystone Colorado, and without a team, it wouldn't happen.

Holley Thompson - Racing on Skis

So, I started skiing with her on the race team. Every weekend throughout the season, we'd hit a resort, alternating between local resorts on Mt Hood, and regional resorts in the area. Every weekend, the fastest time for my group would be something like 18 seconds. The second slowest time would be 25 seconds. Mine would be 35. I was the only racer who had not learned to parallel ski.

But I didn't care. It was social, it was fun, it was hot toddies next to the raging fire in the fireplace at the end of the day. And always Holley's warm smile and laughter. That girl could laugh.

While most of the competing teams would hit the Portland weekends, very few of them would make it to the regional races. Thus, because I had stamina (and Holley's travel agent discount for hotels), I was at every race, and accumulated more points than any other male on the team in the low-rung category.

Randal Schwartz - GS Racing Nationals

And thus, ironically, I was chosen to go to nationals, being the best of the worst, purely on points, never having won a single race the entire season. Holley glared at me, because they didn't take her: she won enough races to get into the top division, and was the bottom of the top. I savored that all-expense paid trip to Keystone, and snowplowed my way through the finals, being the only one on the hill who had never parallel-skiied.

Holley and I picked Karaoke as a means of entertainment during the off-season, and began next year with snowboarding. We boarded a couple more years, before I got busy and she went her own way. We hung out with the occasional Karaoke session over the years, but the last time I saw her was probably five years ago.

Her phone number in my iPhone had long been dead... I googled her name occasionally to try to find her. I knew she had a pet boarding/grooming business, and found some old posts with references to that, but nothing current.

On a whim, a couple of hours ago, I googled for her name again, since she had crossed my mind earlier today. I found an obituary, saying she had passed away two months ago. I had to re-read it three times to verify that it was really her. But I'm sure it is. It mentions her then-boyfriend, now apparently husband Mark, and her daughter Shelby.

I guess at age 47, it's time to start thinking that maybe 10% of your friends and loved ones will be gone already. But I really wasn't ready for this one either.

Holley, I will miss you. I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I hope they have skiing and karaoke where you are, with no waiting.

Goodbye, friend Holley.

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No longer metal man -- second surgery successful

nobody@vox.com(Randal Schwartz) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 09:21:08 -0700

In case you haven't been following my twitter feed, let me bring you up to date.

I went into surgery eight days ago to remove the metal plate from my left arm, the one that was inserted during my previous surgery five months ago. Ironically, this plate was to reduce the amount of time I would spend healing, but instead intruded itself in such a way that my wrist was unable to fully flex. So the very thing that should've made it possible for me to heal quickly actually prevented me from fully healing.

After spending three days drugged up on OxyContin, I switched to using ibuprofen because I knew that it would reduce the swelling a bit more. I've been taking ibuprofen, typically at three or four doses a day.

This phase of healing is familiar --- I remember the few weeks after the previous surgery where any movement of my fingers would not be immediately felt, but result in an inflammation that was sometimes fairly painful 20 or 30 minutes later. I'm anxious to get started getting the rest of my motion back, but until I get out of this phase where every bit of work results in pain, I'm not directly motivated.

Although I've never been completely away from doing the day-to-day business of my company, obviously being unable to type at full speed and use both of my hands for most of the time has had its toll. And of course, with the economy being what it is, this couldn't have come at a worse time. It's hard enough just finding the good projects, but when it's even harder to respond via e-mail or hack some Smalltalk code because I can't type and hold the control key down and use the mouse all the same time, it's discouraging.

Anyway, I'm hoping this new surgery will do the trick. I get my sutures out next Tuesday, and then I can begin aggressively retraining my muscles and restretching my tendons to give me at first the ability to hold small objects, and then hopefully typing relatively soon thereafter.

I appreciate the kind words that those of you who sent to me during my presurgery jitters and post surgery recovery. It has made going through this difficult time at least a bit easier. Thank you!

As most of you probably know, I produce a podcast with Leo Laporte called FLOSS Weekly. I've been lining up some pretty amazing guests over the past few months in spite of barely being able to type. Using my voice to produce a podcast at least seems like something I can continue to do in spite of my hopefully temporary handicap.

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Ray Schwartz - Oct 7 1918 to Dec 25 2008 - goodbye, Dad

nobody@vox.com(Randal Schwartz) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:33:55 -0800

It's been a month now since my dad passed away, and I think I have enough objectivity to be able to write something up here. This won't be a comprehensive account of his life or what he means to me... just a brief note so that I can refer others when the item comes up in conversation.

Dad made it to the ripe old age of 90. He was suffering in the past few years, but not medically advanced to the point where the VA would let him enter their full-time care facilities. (He dressed himself, and got around slowly with a walker and electric scooter, but he didn't prepare his own food any more.) However, I spent a lot of my time (and some of my money) to make sure he was happy.

He had lived in a house in Lincoln City, a few hours drive from me on the Oregon coast. He'd been there for over 30 years, from shortly after the time of separating from my Mom after they got married to each other for the second time (and that's a story in itself). Even at age 75 and beyond, he was running around town installing UHF antennas on people's roofs, to get "free tv" and get away from paying the ubiquitous cable bill. (It's ironic that those UHF antennas will all be going dark shortly.)

He had taken in the company of other women during those 30 years (mostly young mothers, because he liked the kids), but had spent the last few years lonely and alone, after the last woman left. Tragically, two of his sons (who lived nearby) from the wife before my mother also passed away in these past few years. It's not right that a man buries his own child, but to do it twice in a short period only compounds the pain.

In an effort to bring him closer by to medical aid and constant supervision, I moved him from his home on the coast to a residential care facility near me. I had hoped that he would make friends, and regain the companionship that he had lost by no longer being able to work, but he eventually ended up hating the change, and cried to be returned to his home on the coast, which I did a few months later.

When he moved back to the coast a year ago, I ensured that he was visited (at my expense) twice a week by a nurse, and I also arranged for Andy (a long-time local friend of Dad's) to live in the spare bedroom to keep an eye on Dad when Andy wasn't at work. Andy put up with quite a lot in exchange for his free room and board, but did it with a kind heart and soul. Very moving.

I was able to get down to see Dad only a few times this past year. I noticed on each visit that he was getting more forgetful, more demented, more frail, more ghostly. Just before his 90th birthday, Mom and my brother Russ and I drove down to see him to wish him a happy birthday. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it down on the exact day, so I had to make do with a phone call.

The next visit was Mom, Russ and I again, this time on Thanksgiving Day. As it was quite a production to take Dad anywhere, and his food had to be entirely liquified these days, we didn't take him out, but just visited with him for an hour. He was looking bad enough that I didn't even take any pictures, because I didn't want to remember him looking that way. As always, he was in tears to see us, happy that we kept coming back, and happy for everything that I was continuing to do for him.

He kept asking when he was going to get his driver's license back (which had been taken away two years earlier for failing a mental competency test) so that he could drive around to his favorite places in town. Andy and Mom and I exchanged knowing glances that this could never possibly be the case, so we just replied by smiling and changing the subject.

As we drove away, I was saddened by Dad's current condition, wishing I could do more for him, and feeling helpless in the combination of my broken arm, the broken economy, and a messed-up government system that hadn't recognized that Dad needed more immediate care now. We stopped at the Burger King for lunch... not exactly traditional Thanksgiving food, but expedient and available and reasonably priced.

It was Andy who called me a few weeks later, at 10am on Christmas Day. "Your dad... I found him on his bedroom floor this morning when he didn't come to breakfast." I listened to Andy describe what he could about what he had done since then, and got Andy to give the officer nearby my contact information. I sat and sobbed for a few minutes, then called Mom in Olympia. I gave her the officer's phone number, and she and my other brother Ron handled most of the practical details from there. (Ron had recently dealt with the death of his father-in-law, so I knew he'd have more of the process fresh in his mind.)

This was also particularly rough for Mom because her brother Earl (my closest Uncle) had passed away just a few weeks earlier. We had seen Earl together (at a nursing home nearby) when Mom had come down to visit Dad for Thanksgiving, and Earl too had passed away shortly after. Earl had been like a second father to me when I started my career, although I hadn't had much contact with him in the past few years.

I said I wasn't going to make this long, but I wanted to get the events of the past few months written down while it was fresh in my mind. I'm writing up a longer version in preparation for a spreading of the ashes sometime in the next few months when I can get the extended family together. At Dad's request, we'll spread his ashes somewhere in the Columbia Gorge, the most beautiful area in the world, as soon as I figure out how to do it legally and with respect.

I do want to make it very clear though, to all comers. Everything I am about my insatiable curiosity and work stamina and honesty and integrity started with my father and the lessons he taught me as I was growing up. I owe my life to him, today and always. And in return, I know that I turned out good, because he would remind me each time we met, "Son, I'm damn proud of you".

Dad, I'm damn proud of you too. Thank you for my life. I'm sad that you're gone now, but happy that you're suffering less today than you did a month ago. And you'll always be a part of the stories I tell, of the legend of my father, the great Ray Schwartz. Goodbye, Dad.

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Recovering from surgery

nobody@vox.com(Randal Schwartz) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:40:32 -0700

If you haven't been following my twitter feed, you might not know that I broke my left arm last week while I was having a barbecue party at the house of my friend, Neil Bauman. Neil took me to Stanford Medical Center, where I was diagnosed having broken both of the major bones in my forearm very near the wrist. They put on a cast and told me I had to see a doctor when I got back home to Portland.

When I saw the doctor this past Monday, he told me that I would need surgery to put a plate in my forearm. The surgery happened Wednesday, and I spent most of the past 48 hours in a significant amount of pain during the recovery. Today, I'm feeling better, although I'm groggy from the OxyContin.

I still haven't decided whether I would be up to flying to Rome on Sunday (at least it'll be first-class), as I'm scheduled to be a speaker on Mac mania eight, and all the travel is already paid for. My thinking is that I might as well be on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean with easy access to my friends and room service rather than sitting at home for the same 14 day period --- the biggest issue being whether I can easily navigate the airports with my laptop bag and clothes bag having only one arm. I'm going to test this tomorrow by pre-packing my load and walking around a bit to see if it's too awkward.

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Interviewed by Mac Developer Roundtable

nobody@vox.com(Randal Schwartz) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:45:28 -0700

Last week, I was interviewed by the Mac Developer Roundtable, and apparently the show has been published. I haven't listened to it yet, so if they made me sound foolish, I'm sure it's completely authentic. {grin}

I was quite impressed by the production technology—they use "double ender" recording, which means that each of us recorded our respective ends of the Skype call, and then we all upload it to Scotty. It's a lot more work for him to do it that way, but we all end up sounding "live" instead of "via Skype".

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