Yes, that says “wroks“. I have a hard time maintaining my calendar. Thankfully I have a wonderful co-worker named Erin Lee who helps me out. If I don’t have Erin assist me in scheduling appointments they tend not to get scheduled and then I never meet with people I should. My calendar is just too complex and time consuming to juggle especially when it involves getting multiple parties scheduled. Enter Tungle.
Now, before you razz me about my calendar not looking so complex, let me tell you this is only showing one of my calendars and is an intentionally slow week because I have a lot of writing to catch up on. Anyway, back to Tungle. The app syncs with Google Calendar and Google Contacts. Tungle allows you to “paint” acceptable proposed times and send an email to invitees allowing them to selected from the proposed times. It’s simple, integrates with tools I already use and has completely simplified and improved my life. Thanks Tungle. One request, it would be even better if I could sync multiple Google Calendars and keep them in distinct color coding.
work related tools that affect disruptive improvements.
to affect deeply; stun; move or sway powerfully, as with emotion; Wrok!
to positively affect, shake or disturb violently the status quo of a work environment. MindTouch 2009 introduced a messaging bus that enables notification to users via email, microblogging and/or for messaging external systems. It wroks!
to lull in security, instill hope, inspire, etc. GMail and Google Maps are applications that wrocked when they were first introduced, inspiring a new class of rich internet applications.
The lake covers a surface area of approximately 376 sq mi (970 km2), the largest in California. While it varies in dimensions and area with changes in agricultural runoff and rain, it averages 15 mi (24 km) by 35 mi (56 km), with a maximum depth of 52 ft (16 m), giving a total volume of about 7,500,000 acre·ft (9,250,000 dam³), and annual inflows averaging 1,360,000 acre·ft (1,680,000 dam³). The lake’s salinity is increasing by about 1 percent annually, at about 44,000 mg/L, is greater than the waters of the Pacific Ocean (35,000 mg/L), but less than that of the Great Salt Lake.[1]
by slworking2The back story of the Salton Sea is fascinating. The current inland sea formed when canals were built to divert the Colorado River in an attempt to irrigate the Imperial Valley for agricultural. In 1905, one of the canals was breached and water flowed for nearly two years into the Salton Sink. The basin filled and the town of Salton, a Southern Pacific Railroad siding and the location of the Liverpool Salt Works were submerged. The basin being flooded was not a new phenomenon, the Colorado River has been flooding the Salton Basin for, at least, a few centuries.
The colorful story of the Salton Sea gets the more interesting in the 1950s and 1960s when real estate speculators developed the area into a “California Riviera” akin to Palm Springs. In fact, in the 1950s, the Salton Sea had more visitors than Yosemite National Park. Jet-setters and celebrities from Los Angeles and San Diego vacationed in Salton City and investors expected huge returns on their real estate investments.
Ashby dancing in the desert.
The hey day was short lived however. The lake has no outlet and therefore the Salton Sea increased in salinity. In the 1950s the fresh water fish (Tilapia) that were stocked in the 1920s were all but gone and the lake was being restocked with salt water fish. Agricultural irrigation exacerbated the increasing salinity by farm irrigation dissolving salts from the soil, which then flowed downhill back into the lake. In addition, pesticides such as DDT and Agent Orange as well as chemical fertilizers seeped into the lake.
Swaths of beach are littered with fish carcasses.
In 1986 authorities declared fish in the Salton Sea not fit for consumption. To make matters worse, in the 1970s the high saline levels caused algal blooms, which is when a sudden increase in phytoplankton algae creates a dense tide of neurotoxin producing algae. These blooms create a stench some describe as smelling of rotten eggs. In 1970s the resorts had all closed down and the tourists were gone. Ever since the Salton Sea has only been of interest for agricultural irrigation and as a wildlife preserve for birds. Birds are attracted to the lake largely because of the population boom that diminished the wetlands in the Los Angeles area. Also, migrating birds use the Salton Sea as a stop off in their migration route. However, due to the toxicity levels there have been a few mass bird die offs at the lake.
One of the old yacht clubs stood here.
Sounds awesome, right? I thought so too. 🙂 Which is why Tara and I took the family to check it out. From downtown San Diego it is about a two hour and fifteen minute drive to Salton City. The drive is a gorgeous route through the mountains, past Julian and down into Anzo-Borrego. Stop in Julian for lunch and/or dinner or be sure to bring a picnic because you are likely not going to want to eat at one of the few establishments in Salton City. Before you reach the Salton City you pass desert spot that is popular for city folk to take, or rent, all terrain vehicles and tear up the desert.
Near Anzo-Borrego is a popular area for off road enthusiasts.
I expected Salton City to be completely abandoned, but there is a large modern truck stop servicing the nearby border crossing to Mexico. Also, I was surprised by the many inhabited homes. Most of which were in poor condition. It was interesting to note there are many houses that were constructed in the last five to ten years that are being advertised as starting at $99,999 and look like they would sell for 5-6 times this were they not near a fetid stinking lake of death. One of the more eerie aspects of Salton City are the hundreds of outlines of residential lots created by power lines and crumbling roads, but no houses.
The beach we stopped at was where one of the old yacht clubs was located. It was bizarre to travel the 4 lane divided road leading up to the beach and parking lot. The divider had clearly been planted with palm trees and foliage that has long since died off. The parking lot was overgrown and barely distinguishable. The beach was littered with fish bones and decomposing fish corpses. However, it didn’t stink at all; although, it was a very windy day.
The Salton Sink was all I expected, and more. It was a gorgeous drive and we had a wonderful time. I intend to return and spend a few hours shooting photos.
Tara was cleaning the house and she suggested I take Ashby somewhere to stay out of hair so we went to the Art Festival in Little Italy. Hey, I cleaned the kitchen and mopped some floors before I left. 🙂
I didn’t realize the event didn’t start until noon and we were almost two hours early. We still had a good time and stopped by the Farmers Market. The Little Italy Farmers Market must be the best and cheapest place in downtown to get flowers. Ashby picked out a mixed bouquet that had wild flowers and a few roses. Also, I got Tara 5 mini sunflower stems. Grand total: $6! This was even cheaper than the Hillcrest Farmers Market
I wrote two blog posts at the MindTouch blog today that I think are of import. The first is about Open Core models. The second post is about my belief in open source.
The title of this blog post could be: Why open source matters to me, but I like the former because it’s racier and I hear that gets readers. Anyway, I was prompted to write this because of a comment and question posed me by a MindTouch open source community member that really is best answered/satisfied by me explaining this and also sharing my ideas about Open Core. At any rate, to answer why open source matters to me I really have to respond from two distinct perspectives. First I’ll answer it on a personal level and then as the CEO of an enterprise software company.
Here is my “Aaron hat”. I received my degree in Computer Science from UNC-Chapel Hill where I did pretty much all my course work, like most CS students, on an open source stack. I’ve helped to start several non-profits tasked with bridging the digital divide in under-served and predominately minority communities where I primarily used an open source stack. I’ve owned a couple small businesses in which I benefited a great deal by building on, guess what, primarily an open source stack. So, let me tell you on a personal level I have very strong convictions about open source. There are many reasons, but I will present you my top two.
On our family walk through Mission Hills this morning I snapped a few photos.
Here is a local market near Ashby’s pre-school that always stands out for me as being oddly out of place. Also, it has “Hommus” on the front window.
It’s not as attractive as the previous photo would imply. Here’s another flattering photo, and I write this with a modicum of sarcasm. As you can see the building is oddly shaped, which makes for a great contrasts of light and shadow, but it also has an odd number of advertisements…errr…proclamations?
And now, a big ass bee. This thing was the size of a silver dollar and looked like it was from the Triassic period. That’s right, pre-Permian extinction. 😉
Here is Ashby near my office with a penguin she adopted that was meant for Roe and was given by Steve and Brigette. We were having a wonderful father – daughter Saturday a couple weeks ago.
I’ve long posited homophobes have gay tendencies. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Being gay that is. Well, here you have it. My suspicion is confirmed! Well, not exactly, but my assertion is definitely strengthened.
The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies.
via Pubmed, PMID: 8772014 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]
Aaron Fulkerson 