Isham Randolph’s Lazy Wikipedia Biographer
Isham Randolph, looking like he's ready to dig a big canal
Way back in 2006, I started a short lived polyglot programming group named after Rudolph Hering (who I thought reversed the flow of the Chicago River). I later found out that I was totally wrong. Around the same time, I vowed to build a wikipedia page for the maligned Isham Randolph, the actual engineer who actually reversed the flow of the Chicago River. Now, almost 5 years later, there’s a wikipedia page with a picture, some dates, and a single paragraph about Isham Randolph.
Over the course of a few chilly nights in October 2010, I collected a couple dozen articles from the Chicago Tribune online archives (courtesy of the Chicago Public Library), and a bunch of engineering texts written by Isham and his colleagues (courtesy of Google Books). I found a photo, a copy of his signature, learned about the ins and outs of copyright law as it pertains to Wikipedia, and wrote a brief paragraph with my best interpretation of Isham’s life.
I was briefly embroiled in a copyright / image fair use issue with a Wikipedia editor, which was enlightening, and a bit disheartening. I spent most of my time there trying to figure out how I could justify using the only photograph I could find of Isham without violating Wikipedia’s policies. By the time the issue was resolved, I’d lost some steam.
Tonight, I went back to the virtual corkboard and started adding metadata to my collection of digital documents. I’d like to add content to the article, but don’t want to do it until I have a good understanding of the arc of Isham’s very impressive life. It’s important to me, because Isham was an exceptional man. He wasn’t formally educated, worked his way up through the railroads, was appointed the first chief engineer of the Chicago Sanitary District, and then undertook the greatest civil engineering project of the time. A project that was totally crazy, tremendously ambitious, and a little abhorrent to today’s more environmentally conscious style of engineering.
His career didn’t end when the canal finished, he went on to work on the Panama canal at the appointment of President Roosevelt, fought corruption in Chicago, wrote poetry about the sanitary & ship canal, and raised a son that would be a significant figure in the secret cabal that brought down Al Capone. A man like that deserves at least a reasonable Wikipedia page, probably a lot more.
My Virtual Corkboard
Late in his life, Isham wrote an 80 page autobiography, which his family published in 1937, long after his death. The Newberry Library has a copy, Gleanings from a Harvest of Memories. It’s cited in several civil war histories, because Isham grew up in Virginia during the war, and his childhood memories of the war are quotable. I’ve known about the book since October, but haven’t made the time to get to the library to read it. After tonight’s cataloging of sources, I’m enthusiastic to get down there and figure out who Isham was, or at least who Isham thought he was.
A few questions that I want to answer through the research: How does a railroad axeman become the head of the sanitary district of a major US city? Was he related to Mayor Harrison? I think, but haven’t confirmed, that they have a common ancestor in Thomas Jefferson’s maternal grandfather Isham Randolph of Dungeness. The canal is usually thought to have been constructed because of a typhoid epidemic in the city (which has been proven untrue), was the intention of the canal always based on transportation, was it there to undercut the railroads? Was Isham appointed because he knew transportation (railroads!) and knew how important the canal would be to the growing city? Later in life, Isham was an outspoken critic of political corruption, while the Chicago Sanitary District was called “a vast power in the state.” How involved was Isham in Chicago politics? He was the head of a multi-million dollar giant engineering project that was constantly under fire from city and state government, what compromises (if any) did he have to make?
This isn’t an overnight kind of project, kind of like the canal:
Some Talks
I’ve been getting the word out about Threadless’ move to Python. Here’s my keynote at Pycon in Hot-lanta,
And my keynote at Flourish here in Chi-town,
Both talks went well, I’m a little embarrassed that I got a little swear-y in the name of “edginess” at Pycon. I’ve given plenty of talks in the past, but it’s relatively new to me to be recorded while I’m talking. Going back to watch the talks again is…weird. Anywho, note to myself: regardless of what the crowd in front of you will tolerate, if there’s a camera pointing at you, don’t tell swear jokes. That said, the convore reviews were mostly positive.
The Chicago Awesome Foundation
My pal Atul suggested that I should get involved with the Awesome Foundation by starting up a Chicago chapter. A few emails and phone calls later, and the Chicago Chapter was born. I was fortunate that a very organized guy named Derek was also working on a Chicago Chapter, we combined forces, and are now looking for our first grant proposals. We started a Awesome Chicago blog, and wrote a bit about the kind of awesome we’re looking for, and how to apply.
The idea is pretty simple, 10 people commit $100 / month of their own cash towards a $1000 grant to promote awesome in Chicago. It sounds simple, because it is simple. We want to see people do interesting things in our city. They can be purely altruistic (like a diaper bank in Washington D.C.), or just awesome (like a giant slide in Berlin). Regardless of the path towards awesome the proposal takes, what I most want to see is people promoting community in Chicago. I love this city, and I want to do what I can to make it just a little bit better. This is an exciting project, I’m really happy to be a part of it. I can’t wait to see what we end up funding.
Here’s our very first fancy tweet!
And here’s my much less fancy tweet, that links to this post…thus completing an endless circle of links:
I’m an Archer
There’s a bow range off of Belmont Harbor that I always wondered about. A full blown archery range in the middle of Lincoln Park is an odd sight. I’ve known about it for a few years, but never thought much of it until last July. For some reason I thought about it, and started googling to figure out who ran it, and what it took to shoot there.
I found the Lincoln Park Archery Club, which maintains the field. Membership is cheap, and you get a key to the clubhouse, which gives you full access to their targets. However, you need your own bow, and experience enough to shoot competently. While searching, I found the SEO-friendly Archery Bow Range Chicago, which was associated with LPAC (one of the founders of ABRC is the President of LPAC). ABRC offered a beginners class. I signed up, took the class, then took another, another, more, and then joined a full blown beginners league that shot once a week.
I’ve shot once a week or so since, and am now comfortable saying, “I’m an archer” without feeling weird. Archery is a sport, an olympic sport even, and requires patience, practice, and exercise, three things I’m not always good about. In fact, I’m still not terribly good at the practice and exercise parts of the sport, and it’s starting to adversely affect me. My left shoulder (the one that holds up the bow) is starting to hurt whenever I raise it above my head. I think I have some sort of muscle strain. More about this after some more history.
There’s two major categories of bows used in competition, compound and recurve. Compound is the kind of bow you normally associate with bow hunting, the Dukes of Hazard, and Rambo. There’s a complicated cam system that means you can hold the string at full draw with almost zero pounds of pull. Recurves are more like what elves shoot. It’s a standard looking bow. Unlike the long bow (think Robin Hood), the recurve has a slightly curving top and bottom limb which increase the force the bow can deliver.
In the beginning, I shot a standard beginner’s compound. It was a great way to learn, as you could focus on the mechanics without worrying too much about draw poundage. I liked shooting compound, but was attracted to the recurve for mostly aesthetic reasons. I liked the idea of tinkering with the bow without getting too into the cam system, the more traditional feel of the bow, and the sound they made. ABRC bought a few nice entry level recurves, and I sort of claimed one as my own for the duration of two 8 week leagues. It’s a nice bow, with a wooden handle with woodgrain that acted as a great sight.
After a few months of shooting the club recurve, I decided I wanted a bow of my own to focus on. I bought a bright red Hoyt Formula Excel, a new 2011 entry level model that Hoyt patterned after their much more expensive Formula RX. It turned out to be a bit of a gateway to more equipment. Now I have a pretty full kit with a stabilizer bar, adjustable sight and some pink fletched carbon arrows. Like a lot of sports / hobbies, there’s an endless supply of equipment you could buy, all of which tweaks the experience a bit. I’m at the point where I have very nice equipment, but my skills are still at the beginner approaching intermediate level. When I whip out that red bow and hot pink arrows, there’s a lot of expectations to live up to, most of which I totally fall short of.
That said, I really do love the sport. It’s relaxing, approachable, but with a learning curve, and rewarding when you start hitting the mark. The relaxation part is key. There’s a sign up at the range that says, “archery is 90% mental.” It’s absolutely true. If I have a bad day, I have to spend some time shaking it off before I start shooting, or my score suffers. If I’m in my head, it directly affects my shot. Archery demands an immediacy and presence that I love. I’ve seen it referred to as ‘standing meditation,’ which is a very appropriate way to think of it.
Meditiation or not, there’s still a sport aspect to it that I sometimes forget. Like a lot of sports, if you don’t prepare properly, you can hurt yourself. My new bow has a draw weight of 30 pounds. Not a tremendous amount, but it takes some effort to pull it back. I bought the low poundage so that I wouldn’t have to build up a huge amount of shoulder strength to pull it, but wanted enough that I could shoot long distances eventually. Even with the small amount of weight, I’ve still managed to damage my bow shoulder. Which is partially why I’m writing this. I’m in a slump score-wise. After a 20 shots or so, my shoulder starts to act up and my score suffers. Plus, I have a pretty complicated rig with a lot of moving parts, all of which I’m getting used to.
Recurve is the Emacs of archery, very powerful, but can take some time to figure out all the key combos. I also stepped up my league a bit, moving from the 10 yard line to the 15. It’s not a giant jump, but it’s enough to register a significant change in score. I went from a reasonable average of 215 (out of 300) points, down to 125. It’s been rough. Between the pain, and the slumping score, I’ve been reexamining the whole thing. Part of writing this, and some future articles I’d like to whip up, is to get my head back in the game. I’m excellent at starting up a hobby, getting all the equipment, messing around for a bit, then ditching it. I don’t want to do that here. Part of the reason why I took so much time to buy a bow was so that I was sure this is something I wanted to do for a while. Now that I’m in, I’m in. I’m not ditching. So…while my shoulder recovers, I’m writing a bit more, reminding myself why I’m an archer.
Leaving the Big Two is Hard
Remember that post a few days ago about how I quit Twitter and Facebook? That lasted all of one month. Why? Well, I’m still pretty firmly quit on Twitter, despite the fact that I’ve registered a new name, but Facebook really sucks you back in. Not for any of the things that make Facebook Facebook, like social graphs, and reconnecting with people you really don’t want to reconnect with, it’s because of all the areas of the internet that Facebook has co-opted. The specific reason was because of a real-world archery group I belong to that only posts information, important information, like scores in an ongoing league, to Facebook. Why do they do that? Because Facebook is easy.
I can’t blame them, Facebook has the momentum of 25% of the internet, and has become the de facto way of organizing everything. In the early days of the Chicago Python Users Group, there was an outcry when we started organizing the meetings through meetup. I thought it was ridiculous, because, really…who cares? You create an account, you RSVP for stuff. No big deal. The same argument is being used for organizing activities through Facebook. The difference is, I didn’t have to constantly maintain and prune my social graph on meetup. It was a single-use thing. I would use it to RSVP to meetups. That’s it. Facebook comes with a significant amount of baggage. Facebook is the new social graph monopoly, and it’s difficult to have any sort of networked life without an account there.
During my month away from the big two, leaving the networks came up in conversation a few times. It was mostly an admired, wished for act. People genuinely sympathized with leaving the networks, and pined for the act themselves. Then they’d get quiet, and look almost scared, because leaving the networks means cutting ties with the growing number of groups that only organize themselves through those two networks.
The most common complaint I heard, “/Twitter|Facebook/ makes me constantly evaluate what I’m doing right now, and makes me thing how I can phrase it in a /Tweet|Whateverfacebookcallsatweet/.” I agree completely, and despite my re-joining the big two, I’m not going to go back to thinking that way.
Quick edit to add a link to a NYTimes piece that sums up a lot of what I was thinking when I quit: I Tweet, Therefore I Am. In particular, this quote: “a part of my consciousness had split off and was observing the scene from the outside: this was, I realized excitedly, the perfect opportunity for a tweet.”
Slightly Less Social, but I Still Love You
Hi,
Just a quick note to say that I’ve left Twitter and Facebook. Both are nice sites, with lots of good things to say about them, but I didn’t want to be on either of them anymore. The only real explanation I can offer is that I’m a luddite anachronist (a word that I made up) who wants to remain social, but in more specific ways.
What does that mean? Well, I haven’t shut down my flickr, chess.com, google buzz, and threadless accounts, so it’s not that I’m anti-online-social network. Just not into twitter and facebook anymore. Deleting my accounts was really a non-event, given the small size of my respective networks, but it’s come up a few times, so I wanted to let folks know that I’m a-ok, just off twitter and facebook.
Email me. I like email.
Me and the Boy Drop Beats
Sometime over the summer, Wilbur (my adorable two year old son) and I started playing around with Garageband. I’d record him saying something, or banging on the keyboard, and then lay down some Garageband loops underneath it. He liked sitting on my lap at the computer and listening, and he especially liked banging on the keyboard. So, for Christmas, I upped the ante and asked Santa for a MIDI keyboard and a fancy Novation Launchpad to control a entry level copy of Ableton Live. We’ve been playing around with both things for a bit now, making a series of really terrible songs. Clearly, we’re driven by process rather than product.
I’m going to start posting our masterpieces here, to this award winning blog. So, seriously, get ready for some hot trax. This first hit is called “Par-Tai”. It was recorded this morning at 6:30 am, while we let Camri sleep in a bit after a particularly hard night of Wil waking up every hour. If you hand Wil a microphone, chances are he’ll say “Par Tai”. Which is how he pronounces “Party!” It’s adorable, and guarantees that he’s going to rule the par-tai when he gets older.
New Year, New Job
Just before the holiday break, I left PSC and accepted a job at skinnyCorp the parent company of Threadless. Like most good things, there’s a little bit of sad in there for flavor. In this case, I left a group of people that I respected and loved working with. I learned a lot at PSC, and am grateful they gave me the opportunity that they did.
I’m really thrilled to be at Threadless, I’ve interacted with them for a while now, so the move felt right. I joined as the VP of Technology, inheriting a sterling group of tech awesome dudes from the equally sterling Harper Reed. The job means that this blog will most likely stray into topics that I haven’t written about in the past, exciting process-y management-y type topics. One of the advantages to working at a place like skinnyCorp is that their company is an open book, as evidenced by their Threadless365 project, so I’m confident that I’m not going to be giving away any top secret information.
2010 is going to be a good year. I’m resolving to tweet less and blog more. Or…really…tweet the same, and blog more.
Amazon Gets Relational
Last week I gave an Amazon EC2 presentation at the Day of Cloud conference here in Chicago. My slides from the presentation cover some basics about EC2. It was a good day, lots of good speakers, and lots of attendees that were interested in getting their apps into the mysterious clooooouuudd.
The kicker is, I spent a fair amount of time explaining how to set up a relational database on EC2, just in time for Amazon to announce that they’re releasing very easy to use MySQL instances. Luckily, I have a half hour tomorrow at the Chicago Google Tools User Group to revisit the Amazon talk. I’ll revise the talk to focus on Amazon’s new offerings, specifically how to get a reasonable web app up on Amazon using RDS as a database back end.
I understand the irony of giving the talk at a Google tools group, but it can’t hurt to know how to move your applications off of AppEngine and on to other services. It’s all part of Data Liberation, right?
Now, with video:
Amazon EC2 Without A Custom AMI
I’ve been involved with a handful of EC2 deployments at PSC, and they’ve all ended up with a custom AMI. Basically, starting up an existing base Ubuntu server, installing and configuring packages, and saving the new image as a custom AMI. It’s not a bad way of doing things, but I had a nagging feeling that there was an easier way. Especially given the ease of deploying an AppEngine app. Granted, they’re two completely different animals, but still…there had to be something better.
Eric Hammond, of Alestic fame, answered a bunch of my nagging subconscious questions with the release of runurl. Now, you build and host your configuration scripts, and pass a list of the scripts to run on server start up through passed user-data scripts. In theory, it’s possible to start up a new base server, and automate the build out through hosted scripts. It means slower start up time, but significantly less configuration and AMI maintenance. For a webserver cluster, where you have some time to get new nodes up, this method makes more sense than the standard AMI-saving method. Nice work Eric!
