Asides

One of those things that needs to be said every once in a while…

The Wrong Kind of Nerd – Committed (Sonia Harris)

One of those things that needs to be said every once in a while: There’s more than one way to be a fan. Not everyone likes the same stuff, and that’s okay. More importantly, not everyone who likes the same stuff you do likes the same things about it that you do…and that’s okay too.

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Answer: Is it crazy to commute between Orange County and Los Angeles every day?

It depends on how flexible your hours are, how early you can get up (or how late you’re willing to stay out), how long you can stand “driving” through stop-and-go traffic, and whether the train is an option.

I commuted the slightly shorter distance from Tustin to the LAX area for about 4 months before I moved closer to my job, and it was incredibly draining.

Typically, I spent 10-20 minutes getting to the 91, and then anywhere from one to two hours trudging along at ridiculously slow speeds for the rest of the drive. The drive home was typically about 20 minutes longer than the drive to work.

On good days, if I made it to Norwalk early enough to find parking, I could take the Metro Green Line the rest of the way, bypassing the worst of the traffic and letting me read on the train. There was a stop a short bus ride away from my office. It still took an hour and a half each way, but at least I could relax during most of it.

Once I actually made it to work in only 45 minutes. It was a holiday. And the drive home was just as bad as usual.

I did try taking the train the whole way a couple of times, by taking Metrolink up to Norwalk. But because the Metro and Metrolink systems only connect in downtown LA, I had to take a local bus from Norwalk’s Metrolink station to Norwalk’s Metro station, and every transfer adds more time and more things that can go wrong in the process…especially because I had to put in extra effort to make it back to Norwalk that evening in time for the last Metrolink train, with two buses and a train on the way. It ended up being almost as stressful and taking even longer.

Going to Santa Monica, the Metrolink/Metro route might work out better, because you can probably transfer straight from one train to another at Union Station. Also, this was about three years ago, so the schedules might allow for more flexibility these days.

Another thing to consider: Metrolink is considerably more expensive than Metro, though if you’re using it daily, a pass will be a much better deal.

On Quora

You know, it seemed to me that three hops from a “suspicious” user would encompass way too many people…

MetaPhone: The NSA Three-Hop

You know, it seemed to me that three hops from a “suspicious” user would encompass way too many people to be a meaningful limit. Someone actually did some math on real data. It turns out that a lot of numbers are connected through common hubs of activity…like, say, T-Mobile’s voicemail number, or Skype. If suspicious user X ever checked voice mail on the same carrier you have, you’re only two hops away.

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No Coincidences

Comment on PAD’s Coincidence in Fiction

I love the take on Les Miserables. I’ve been re-reading the book, and the coincidences are just astonishing.

Things like Cosette starting to give up on Marius and catching a glimpse of a soldier, who just happens to be Marius’ cousin. The Thenardiers’ younger sons are taken in by a former servant of Marius’ grandfather, then get lost and picked up by Gavroche.

My favorite is probably the point at which one of Thenardier’s associates decides to mug some random guy who turns out to be Jean Valjean, on the street outside Marius’ friend’s house, while Gavroche is watching from the bushes.

There actually is a part in the novel where Eponine is manipulating various groups of people. The question is, should that be worked into Valjean’s sister’s spy network? Or is she an opposing force? Hmm…

Note: same ground mostly covered in Padded and No Such Thing as Coincidence

Ugh. So apparently, getting court-approved access to records wasn’t enough for the NSA. They’ve…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html

Ugh. So apparently, getting court-approved access to records wasn’t enough for the NSA. They’ve tapped the links between datacenters within Google’s and Yahoo’s internal networks. Google, for their part, has already started moving toward encrypting traffic on their internal net.