Facebook 2009, Part 1

I was participating only lightly in Facebook before 2009. I had gotten a job that required more social media interaction, so I started to post partisan political material on my account. I had some before, but, that’s been deleted. Now I’m deleting this old stuff.

February 24, 2009

I don’t check this account often.

Please contact me by email. I check this account around once a month.

Some Headlines from 2009

Mar. 24: Video about Safety in the Laundry Business, and Employee Free Choice

MS Access, Outlook: recording bounced email addresses

Xubuntu + Xfce + SSH + public/private keys + USB flash drive = PAIN

MS Access: Display A Subreport Even When There Are No Records

**Pee Commerce**

“I got into a discussion about fertilizing with human manure, and defended the practice, mainly because my grandmother did it.”

This linked to an article about the feces collection business in Japan. It was turned into fertilizer.

March 24: Video about sweatshop labor and outsourcing.

Time Machine: The Minimum Wage Causes High Unemployment

Computer Programmer’s Labor Union?

MS Access: Me.Dirty = falce; Forcing a Form to Update a Record

Redlining is like Segregation, Real Estate Style

April 10: Another Cheap Thumb Gallery Maker

MS Access: Inserting Records with Visual Basic and DAO

April 13: Guilds, Patents, and Cottage Industry

Shellie asks: John, don’t you turn 40, this month??????? how can we help you celebrate??????

Unemployment Lifeline – resources for the unemployed.

It was the Great Recession, and unemployment had battered the people. We were two years into the damage. Unemployment took a while to hit. I recall moping about it, and worrying about it, at work, for months, before we got the bad news from members. We were quite insulated from the pain, believe it or not.

I was worrying, largely, on my understanding of theory. Shortly after the Bear Stearns collapse, people were talking about a market correction. I took that to mean a recession, but given the scale of the failure, I figured we’d be in for a real recession, with some job losses. Like the good leftist I was, I assumed that this would usher Keynesian thought back into Washington, and we’d increase government spending on everything, to give the economy a softer crash.

I was so wrong. Instead, we got some BS bank bailout, without any kind of nationalization of assets. Then we got “cash for clunkers”, a lame, small bailout for car manufacturers. Rather than using the clunkers to create some jobs, like a government-taxi-service for old folks, we destroyed these cars. It was like sacrificing the environment to keep a company or two afloat.

Mobile Phone Developer Sites – about J2ME, Android, Symbian, Blackberry, iPhone, etc.

Asperger’s Quiz – I took it and scored 36, which indicates I may have it. I think autism was just starting to be well known.

April 27, 2009 – Joint Compound, My Favorite Goop – “We’re moving into an old house, and though we’re renting, I like to live in a nice looking place, at least inside, so we’re repainting a couple rooms.” We also fixed some big holes, sealing them up with joint compound. I miss living in that house.

May 4: Taco is the Sushi of the Street

May 14: MS Access Address Cleanup Macros – I wrote these to clean up improperly typed addresses in a database. They weren’t too long, but handled almost 100% of errors. They were entirely based on heuristics and recognizing common errors.

May 17: Jeff Wall, Mimic. Miley Cyrus, viral photo of pulling eyes into slits.

May 20: How to Avoid Late Fees on Your Credit Card

Oct 21: A guy called “tank9” doing the industrial stompy dance at the Vietnamese mall.

Sep 29: BofA just broke off their relationship with ACORN. Didn’t banks get a $700 billion bailout? Where did that money go? Didn’t Warren Buffet make billions by betting on the administration bailing out Goldman Sachs… because the administration is packed with GS alumni? Where’s the real corruption?

Video of sit in protest at Aetna in NY.

Sep 28: Community Shuts Down Nazi Rally in Riverside. Story from LA Indymedia.

Sep 26: UC Students Walk Out Statewide

LA Health Reform Rally Sticks it to Fox

Los Angeles Vigil for Leonard Peltier

39th Anniversary of the Chicano Moratorium: “Still Here, Still A Force”

Aug 23: I just go this from Rosalio Munoz. There was a march in East LA to Roybal-Allard’s office today, at the same time as this WF protest.

Drank too much green tea and couldn’t sleep. Studied MIDP game programming.

Prepping for tomorrow’s Whole Foods demo. Making a couple signs by hand, to counteract the hypnotic effects of pre-printed signs likely to be handed out at the event.

Aug 19:

Arsonist Strikes Renters Rights Activist’s Car

LOS ANGELES – In the early morning hours on August 5th Arturo Velasquez’ car was set on fire outside his home. Arturo is a leading member of the Campaign for Renters Rights. He has been organizing tenants in his building for two years. Arturo is popular with tenants for helping force the landlord, Alfredo Alverado, to make major repairs. Through his efforts Arturo has considerably improved the quality of the life for his family and all the tenants at his apartment building. The building is located in a low income neighborhood in East Hollywood, Los Angeles.

After Arturo helped lead the tenants campaign, the landlord took Arturo to court in an attempt to evict his family. The landlord lost this eviction attempt. But yet again, this year the landlord attempted to take Arturo’s family to court on another charge. Once again, the courts sided with Arturo and his family. Last week the landlord turned down Arturo’s attempts to get them to enter into mediation. Two days later his car was set on fire. Fellow activists and tenants are suspicious of the timing of the attack and are demanding a full investigation. From the Newswire: Arson Attack On Tenant Activist by DntMrn…Organize
Update: Tenants picket councilman’s office, demanding investigation: Small victory against arson attack by DntMrn

I wasn’t very prescient with this post: