Dyepot, Teapot

HTTP GET requests with basic authentication: working.
HTTP POST requests with basic authentication: not working. But I can’t tell if this is because I’m doing it wrong, or because Blogger appears to be somewhere in the middle of switching to a generic Google data API, so I gave up and decided to write an Atom feed generator instead.

Which leads me to the next problem: the Time library documentation says there’s an xmlschema function, to generate iso8601 formatted date/time strings. But I can’t find it. Time.xmlschema gives me “undefined method `xmlschema’ for Time:Class”. Time.now.xmlschema returns “undefined method `xmlschema’ for Sun Sep 24 10:25:30 -0700 2006:Time”.

As a sidenote, irb is really handy for poking around in classes and testing ideas before writing several lines of code that may or may not work as expected. So I tried Time.methods, and sure enough I can’t find xmlschema at all.

What’s going on here? Am I using this wrong, or is the documentation out of sync with the library? Do I have to construct the date string I need by hand?

UPDATE:
Ruby Cookbook to the rescue. I found a way to get the date string I need:

require 'date'
puts DateTime.now.to_s

Tags: ruby, programming, questions

One of the bad things about Ruby [1] is that sometimes when you Google for information on a warning or error message, the only references that turn up are in Japanese.

I’ve been trying to work on a couple of things that need to open https connections with a username and password, and invariably I can’t get it to work. After much mucking around with net/http(s), I feel like I have a fairly good idea of how to work with this library, but even the most successful looking results I’m getting are re-directs because the server on the other end can’t see the username and password I’m sending. This is getting really frustrating, I have no idea if I’m doing something wrong or if there’s a problem with the openssl library, but I can’t even get code samples from a couple of online tutorials to do this correctly.

I’m about ready to rewrite my project in perl. But maybe I’ll find a useful hint in my copy of the Ruby Cookbook, which should be arriving later today.

[1] Okay, this isn’t a problem if you actually speak Japanese. But for me… I’m wishing they were at least writing in German, so I’d have some chance of working out what’s being said.

Tags: programming, ruby

My thumbs hurt. And the first boss level on Sonic Rush seems harder than it ought to be. But otherwise the game works nicely on the DS. There’s something very relaxing about sending a spiky blue guy spinning through a maze of ramps and gold rings.

The best part of babysitting for my cousins when I was in middle school is that after they went to bed, I could play Sonic the Hedgehog on their Sega Genesis until my aunt and uncle came home. We still only had an Atari at my house, so this was a big improvement over my normal video game options. I’m pretty happy to be able to play Sonic again.

Now I just need a home version of Area 51. I kick ass at that game.

Tags: games, nintendo, sonic

This article from the NYT on the results of a study of women in science and engineering was one of the brighter spots in my day. Not because the news is good (far from it), but because the conclusions are so important and it feels good to see this relayed in a major newspaper. I am furious when I hear the assertion that women are less successful in certain fields because they are innately less capable, less motivated and interested, or just not qualified to do the work. It’s ridiculous and dehumanizing, and yet there’s been a rash of this line of thought on some of the tech blogs lately.

A couple of quotes that caught my eye:

The panel dismissed the idea, notably advanced last year by Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard, that the relative dearth of women in the upper ranks of science might be the result of “innate” intellectual deficiencies, particularly in mathematics.

If there are any cognitive differences, the report says, they are small and irrelevant.

…

The report also dismissed other commonly held beliefs — that women are uncompetitive or less productive, that they take too much time off for their families, and so on. Their real problems, it says, are unconscious but pervasive bias, “arbitrary and subjective” evaluation processes, and a work environment in which “anyone lacking the work and family support traditionally provided by a ‘wife’ is at a serious disadvantage.”

Tags: feminism, women, science, engineering

I’m limping along. I did not anticipate just how depressing it would be to not be able to walk properly for so long (it’s been over a month now). My foot is almost back to normal, but I still can’t walk as far or comfortably as I want, and it’s really hard to cope with some days. It’s one of those things I just take for granted, that there’s no reason not to spend half an hour walking somewhere to get a bite to eat or go shopping, but right now that’s really exhausting.

I’m also feeling disheartened by this discussion on women, tech, and the O’Reilly publishing empire. It’s the other half of why I skipped all my programming meetings this month. Not that they aren’t mostly welcoming groups, but sometimes I feel really overwhelmed, like I barely have the technical knowledge to even participate and no one cares what else I can do so I may as well stay home.

I read way too many blog posts about the world o’ tech, so maybe this is on my mind more than it needs to be, but I feel like women are expected to either be just like the guys and blend in without ever mentioning clothing, cooking, or a desire to take a break from writing the next fabulous AJAX library once in a while, or they have to be creative/communicative and design graphics or do marketing or study community collaboration. No major hacking for the girls.

It doesn’t help that I’m really frustrated with my job right now. I feel like the managers I deal with are very critical of the actions of some employees, to the point of micromanaging them, and at the same time allow gross incompetence and very unprofessional behavior from other people. And the people (including myself) who find they have to double check everything and cc like crazy to cover their ass are women, while the person who gets away with the worst job behavior (to the point of being handed easier tasks when he gets confused or frustrated with the work his coworkers are expected to do–despite having the same job title and presumably receiving similar pay) is male.

And I don’t know if what I’m seeing is happening because of gender or not, but I think it’s a factor, just based on watching how the managers deal with other men and women in general. I’m really unhappy about feeling like I have to justify every single thing I do at my job, even though I’ve been there over a year and was had a positive review in July. Especially when I see other people doing very bad work and not seeming to receive any kind of significant reprimand. When I started here, there was a guy who barely did any work or follow up with the customers and instead spent a lot of time on the phone talking to various cousins about arranged marriages… and when he finally left to go work elsewhere, the VP of our department actually came around to thank the guy for his good service. What?

***

Anyhow, I’ve been feeling the need for some stress relief, so I bought myself a Nintendo DS. It’s almost as sexy as my iPod. The display quality is great, it has a shiny black case, and I have a copy of Age of Empires waiting for me right now.

Tags: gender, tech, work

Recently I put a few things up for sale on Etsy. I set it up after we got back from Germany, because I have an assortment of past projects that are just sitting here, and also to see if I could earn a little extra cash to offset my travel expenses. So far, I’ve sold one 1950s knitting pattern book, which isn’t bad considering I’ve done absolutely nothing to advertise the shop.

Right now I have a couple of crocheted pins like the one at the top, a silk scarf, a couple of photographs, and more pattern books. I’ve been thinking about adding prints of more recent pictures I’ve taken (let me know if there’s anything in my Flickr stream I should list), and maybe some other yarn experiments.

Tags: etsy, knitting, crochet, crafts, forsale

I don’t feel like doing anything right now. I hate it.

I have a sweater pattern due to an editor on September 1st, and I still haven’t gotten past the typing up scribbled notes stage of writing it. There is a substantial amount of work left to do, like making the directions consistent and accurate, and calculating all the different sizes. And I really need a reader to look it over and make sure there aren’t glaring errors, but I don’t know who to ask. Anyone? Knitting and math skills required.

I walked to the store at lunchtime to buy milk. It took me an hour, not because the store is far, but because I walk at a snail’s pace right now. It’s very frustrating to have to move so slowly for any distance. The world creeps by. There’s nothing to do but keep walking. Even when I had fibromyalgia, I moved twice as fast.

Kittens are still cute. Toes are still purple.

Tags: slow

It’s been almost a week now, and I still can’t walk. The swelling has gone down enough that I can finally sort of stand, as long as I don’t put weight on my injured foot, and I’m getting better with the crutches, but I’m pretty sick of this already. The only perk is getting to work from home, with a laptop on the couch and a snuggly little kitten.

Sputnik had to go back to the vet today because his cold got worse, so now he’s on antibiotics and some kind of eye drops. He already seems to have perked up. (In fact, he just lept up the back of my chair.)

I’m past ready to have a working foot again. I want to do my own grocery shopping. I want to be able to walk to the bus stop so I can go do things like the Portland dorkbot meeting I missed tonight. I want to be able to carry my own bowl of cereal to the table at breakfast. Hurry up, please? Or at least give me a robot that can ferry things around the apartment?

Tags: foot, sprain, injury, tired

I still can’t flex my foot more than a tiny bit. It feels slightly less swollen, though.

I was planning to go to work today, but my crutch skills aren’t good enough to get me to and from the bus, especially since there’s a hill involved. So someone would have to give me a ride both ways, including helping me with the step up into my apartment, and then once I got to work I’d still be stuck, because getting to my desk involves opening two doors that are on the heavy side and lack any kind of assistive functions like automatically opening. Same goes for the bathroom door there. Our office building (or at least my floor) really isn’t set up for people with limited mobility. Earthquake-proof, fireproof, yes. Doors that can be used by people on crutches or in wheelchairs, no. I wonder if the handicapped stall even has proper grab bars.

Me being gone today causes problems for my department, though, because two other people who cover similar tasks are on vacation today, so we’re really shorthanded. In theory it’s possible for us to log in and work from home, but the VPN hates my router. Attempts to get support from the IT department have gone nowhere. I guess they decided it’s my problem if I can’t get it to work, which might make sense if we weren’t talking about being able to cover some rather important business functions here.

So I guess I get to sit around and try to convince the cats that I am not a jungle gym. And hope I don’t have to figure out how to refill the food and water dishes.

I might risk boiling water injuries to make myself a second cup of tea. Our kitchen is small, so there’s got to be some way to make that work, right?

Tags: injury

On my way to work this morning [1], I stumbled and fell off a curb into the street. This isn’t the first time that’s happened, but usually the way it works is that I swear loudly for several minutes while I crawl to the sidewalk, sit there for a minute while I make sure nothing’s too badly damaged, and then get up and slowly continue on my way. Except this time I couldn’t get up. I sprained my foot pretty badly, and it’s the side with better balance that I rely on for things like getting up off the ground, and I could not figure out how to get to the curb. This is easily the most painful foot injury I can recall. My foot is swollen and puffy like a marshmallow.

About a minute later someone driving by stopped to see if I was okay and helped me into a chair swiped from the porch of the nearest house. She was nice, but in a hurry, so I ended up still stuck in the parking lane of the street, which was safe enough, but felt pretty weird. Especially because I couldn’t manage to stop crying for more than 30 seconds, because my foot really fucking hurt.

It took about half an hour for my brother to come and get me, between the rush hour traffic and retrieving the car keys from my mom who was out walking the dog. In the meantime, a lot of people drove by, walked by, and almost no one stopped to see if I was okay. There was one woman who helped grab another chair so I could put my foot up a little (thank you!), but otherwise everyone seemed to think I was just another Portland weirdo and Not Their Problem. Including the apparent owner of the chairs, who stuck her head out the door to ask if I was going to return them. Even after I told her I was injured and waiting for someone to come get me, she just blinked and closed the door.

Okay, I realize there are some complete crackheads in our neighborhood, but I was dressed for work, wearing a skirt and actually a little more dressed up than average. I don’t think anyone has ever described me as seeming sketchy, even in jeans and flip flops. So what the hell? I realize I wasn’t crying “help! help!” but I’d expect a little more concern from people. One guy driving by waved, in a “hey, having fun out there?” way.

Eventually my brother pulled up and helped me into the truck, and helped me get cleaned up and over to the doctor’s office where they concluded that my foot probably isn’t broken [2], but I still need to stay off it for a few days. I can’t actually flex my foot into a walking position right now, so it would be tough to put weight on it even if I wanted to.

Much hopping and driving around town later, I purchased a pair of crutches [3] and came home. But drugstores? You need to have more chairs. Like just inside the entrance. So that people with limited mobility can take a break instead of leaning on the rack of shopping carts and getting in the way of all the other customers.

Things to note about trying to get around on crutches: stairs are terrifying. Your hands are occupied, so you can’t carry anything. And if your good foot is also the side with worse balance, even crutches won’t keep you from tipping, falling into the counter, and dropping one of them on the cat. Also, the working leg will get tired very, very quickly, so you’re stuck remaining near things you can lean or sit on. Those hand rails in handicapped bathrooms suddenly make so much sense.

I hope this heals quickly.

[1] Well, really on the way back to the apartment to get something I forgot, but since I initially left with the intent to arrive at work, that counts, right?

[2] Pending review by a radiologist, but the doctor didn’t see any obvious fractures.

[3] It took several tries to find a usable pair of crutches. The clinic only had one in the right size for my height, Rite-Aid had a ratty pair that Peter reported was not worth purchasing, Choice Medical doesn’t stock them, Care Medical (where they referred us) was out, the store by Lloyd Center we both remembered as having such things doesn’t seem to be there anymore, and finally Walgreens had what I wanted. At the very back of the store. And there was nowhere to sit while I waited for Peter to get them. And not one employee asked if I needed help. Have you noticed a theme here? It’s really not fun to be injured, have everyone staring at you, and not get even the slightest bit of concern from people like store employees who you’d think would want to have a happy customer. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with everyone?

Tags: ouch, injury, sprain