Bookshelf:

Recently Read & Reviewed:

• Scott Westerfield, The Risen Empire

• John Scalzi, Old Man's War

• Cory Doctorow, Eastern Standard Tribe

Currently Reading:

• Charles Stross, The Family Trade

Next Up:

1. Scott Westerfield, The Killing of Worlds
2. Sean McMullen, Voyage of the Shadowmoon
3. Karl Schroeder, Ventus

Clippy Things

It's been a couple of weeks since I returned from WisCon and Madison generally. Sorry I haven't written. Well, not that sorry, but still. Apparently I can only be prolific in my journal these days when I'm on vacation.

Obviously, I made it home safely. The trip home was not quite as smooth as the trip there, mainly because on the long leg of the trip I got the "parents and their two infants" experience, one across the aisle from me, and one directly behind me. (I'm sure he loved when I tilted my seat back, though.) And my plane was a little late getting in due to inclement weather in Chicago. But otherwise it was pretty routine.

I was glad to get home. I had a great time at the con, as I wrote in excruciating detail, and fun in Madison - especially seeing old friends - but I was ready to get back to my life by the time the vacation was over.

My first week back was mainly highlighted by Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference. If you followed the news or watched Steve Jobs' keynote presentation, you're aware of the big news about Apple hardware. I think it's pretty exciting, not least because it helps put the product I work on, Xcode, in an even more central position.

It's been four years since I moved from WebObjects to what was then Project Builder. I remember my boss at the time - who was otherwise entirely supportive of my move - asked me why I was interested in moving, and I said that I wanted to move to a product which was more central to Mac OS X, which actually made her chuckle. I didn't articulate myself very well, but this was essentially true. Although the software doesn't generate the sort of fervor in me that it does in some Mac aficionados, I think Mac OS X is pretty cool, and I did want to have more direct interaction with folks who work on it. So I've been pleased that Xcode has become more visible in the Mac OS X product, since I get to see more and do more related to the OS as a whole. Sure, being able to work on the next OS is balanced somewhat by having to - sometimes on short notice - provide support for all the engineers who want to use Xcode to built that product or build products which run on it, but on balance it's a net positive.

Anyway. As another former boss of mine likes to say, "It's all good."

I went up to the conference - which was in San Francisco - for parts of three days. Unfortunately the engineers were issued garish orange polo shirts - of quite high quality, I think, but still, garish orange. So I'll probably never wear mine again unless I need to go work on a highway road crew or something. I attended a few sessions and answered a bunch of developer questions, with varying degrees of success (though usually I was at least able to find someone who could help, even if I didn't know the answer). Also caught up with a few former cow-orkers who are now elsewhere but who come to WWDC. That was fun.

It was amazingly hot and humid on Wednesday when I was up there , but cooled off considerably by Thursday. Very strange weather we've been having this year.

Aside from reading all those books on the left, I've also subscribed to all three of the SF magazines: Asimov's, Analog, and Fantasy and Science Fiction. I've mainly done so because I feel it's important to support the few venues for short science fiction out there. By the same token, I know I can't possibly keep up with everything published in them, so I'm not pressuring myself to do so. I start reading each story that seems interesting, and if it doesn't grab me fairly soon then I stop. I probably still end up reading more than half of each magazine, which may still be too much. But it's been fun so far. I knocked down a big stack of issues during my vacation.

Lastly, we've started biking again.

A few weeks ago I got some biking shoes and some clip-on pedals for my bike. And then I had this long, strange odyssey to start using them. First I tried out the shoes using my normal pedals. That was pretty easy. Then the fun began.

The pedals come with "cleats" which attach to the bottom of the shoes, and which are the point of attachment. The principle is that you push down and clip the shoes into place on the pedal, and then twist your ankles outward to unclip from the pedals. The advantages to all this are twofold: (1) The shoes have hard soles which are better than sneakers for biking with, and (2) the clips allow you to exert force on the pedals when lifting your leg, as well as pushing down, this not only being more efficient but also working out more leg muscles.

I attached a cleat to one shoe and decided to test it by clipping it onto an unattached pedal. This was a mistake: I hadn't firmly attached the cleat to the shoe, which meant it rotated with the pedal when I tried to get it off. And the pedal covered the screws which were used to attach the cleat. Aargh. I eventually figured out that I could take the pedal apart to remove it from the cleat. But the pedal uses a spring mechanism, and reassembling the spring meant having to take the pedal apart even more - and I was stymied because one screw on the pedal simply did not want to come out. Aaargh!

I eventually managed to lever things into place to put the spring-rod back into place, and then reassembled the pedal. But boy, was that a pain.

My next challenge was discovering that my adjustable wrench was not adequate to remove my existing pedals from my bike: It's too wide! So I had to actually go out and get a 15mm spanner (actually I bought a set of metric spanners). With it, I removed my old pedals and attached the clippy pedals. Then I tested clipping and unclipping the shoes (cleats firmly screwed into place this time!) in my patio. I adjusted the tension on the springs and it all seemed to work.

Yesterday, Debbi and I took it out for a spin. It's a little tricky, since I do need to think ahead a little to remove my feet from the pedals when I'm going to stop. If I'm going to dismount, it's even a little stranger; I've ended up unclipping both shoes and then standing on the pedals with my heels (the cleats are under the front of the arches of my feet).

Today we went for a lengthy ride with our friends Mark and Yvette. I did finally fall over once, having stopped quickly for a traffic light. I'd unclipped my right foot - which is not the foot I usually unclip to stop. Then I stopped, and leaned to the left - and realized my foot on that side was still attached to the pedal. WHAM! I skinned my left thigh and banged my palm on the pavement, but otherwise I'm okay.

Otherwise, I'd say that my clippy adventure has been successful. And this week I hope to start biking in to work again.

So if you see an Apple engineer lying on his side under his bike at a traffic light, then you can probably guess what happened.