Permission Slip by Consumer Reports Nominated for a Webby Award

For the second time in my career, my project has been nominated for a Webby Award. The first time was back in 2008, when the internet was still cool, and I worked at Nick.com, where I helped build groundbreaking apps such as Nicktropolis and Turbonick. Our main competition that year was canihazacheezeburger.com, and believe it or not we won.

This year the project is Permission Slip (https://permissionslipcr.com), a mobile app to help people take back control of their personal data online, inspired by California’s Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CCPA) which defines compliance measures a company must undertake when a consumer requests the exercise of their privacy rights.

As lead engineer on the project and of the Innovation Lab at Consumer Reports, I’m especially gratified that we’re nominated in the category of Technical Achievement. Of course I’m part of a pretty large, and very intelligent, creative, knowledgeable and otherwise awesome team. And sometimes it feels like a large part of my job is just going to meetings and telling everyone my opinions. But I guess that actually is an important job.

Anyway, you can vote here, until the end of the week:

Vote now for: Apps & Software – Technical Achievement (https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2023/apps-dapps-and-software/app-features/technical-achievement)

Vote now for: Apps & Software – Public Service & Activism (https://vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting#/2023/apps-dapps-and-software/general-apps/public-service-activism)

Bunny Hop

We just got back from a fun trip upstate, a mini vacation to visit friends and family for Easter.  Our first stop was in Watkins Glen to do some hiking.  We drove up the night before and stayed right on the lake.  I’d never been there before, and it was a cool hike and a gorgeous gorge full of waterfalls.  Unfortunately, the trial that goes right up the bottom of the gorge was not yet open for the season; I guess they have to make sure it’s in good repair after the snow melts and there’s no danger of falling rocks.  So we stayed on the rim trails, which still provided plenty of views and scenic overlooks, a few bridges and the occasional side path down into the gorge. Still we want to go back in season when the gorge trail is open cuz it’s pretty spectacular.

When we were done our hike we drove the rest of the way up to Buffalo.  We stayed with my mum and dad, and Lizzy and Michelle came down for dinner and to hang out.  Played some board games, drank some wine, did some story telling.  Next day we went to see the Sabres play.  I hadn’t been to a hockey game in many years, and it was alot of fun.  Our friends Larry and Jackie met us as the arena, and just by coincidence their son and some of his friends had seats in the row behind us.  It was a good game, fast and exciting, and the Sabres won by one goal.  Now they’re hanging on to playoff hopes if they win more than two or their last few games. Afterwards we went out to dinner at a local craft brewery, which was alot of fun.  I hadn’t been walking around that part of downtown Buffalo in a long time, and it’s good to see it all cleaned up and full of restaurants and other businesses.

Sunday was Easter.  Jeannie and I went for a long walk around my parent’s neighborhood in the morning.  We ran into Lizzy, who is training to run a half marathon and came over early to do a run around the ‘hood as well. My uncle Ron and aunt Emöke came over for Easter dinner.  I hadn’t seen them since my dad’s ninetieth birthday party before the pandemic, so that was really nice.  Lots more storytelling and wine, and finding out what all my numerous relations are up to.

Now we’re home and the weather here is just gorgeous. Even got out on my bike today for a short ride. Hoping to have a chance to do some yardwork before the weekend.

Good Day Sunshine

Early spring continues to get springier.  Last Friday I finished up raking the yard, filling up three more big bags of leaves and debris.  This morning the town came and picked it all up, so it’s on to the next task.

Sunday morning I took my ’67 Mustang out for the first drive of the season.  I’m happy to say it started right up, and sounded and felt good on the highway.  Woo-hoo!

Then Sunday afternoon Jeannie and I went for a bike ride.  Last summer we started doing bike rides on local trails around the area, but we only did a few.  This year, I figured since we had such a good ski season, I want to do something athletic the rest of the year too.  So we’re starting early in the spring (just two weeks ago we were still on our skis) and hope to get a regular pattern going.  This one was just over ten kilometers, in about an hour.  Nothing too huge, but not bad for the first time out. 

I also finished a longstanding software development project, adding some sort functionality to the class scheduling tool for conventions on the Origami USA web site.  This was a rather drawn out endeavor because it’s built in PHP on an old version of Drupal, and the whole dev environment is an enormous pain in the neck.   The overhead of keeping the site running locally is non trivial:  updates from the git repo, managing the dependencies, updating the scripts to sync the database and media assets, it’s all a major headache and time suck, and there are breaking changes from time to time.  All this is before one can even start writing code.  So I’m pretty happy it’s done with.  Well, maybe one more tiny change.  Robert Lang, who is OUSA’s web master and the only person who really understands how the site works, helped me drag it over the finish line, so thanks to him for that.

Meanwhile, my origami stellated icosahedron is coming along.  I’ve finished pre-creasing on the smaller one, and on the larger on I collapsed it halfway, then unfolded to reinforce the valance of all the existing creases to make it hold its shape better, and refolded it.  All that’s left is to fold the lock.  I’m thinking I’m going to wetfold this one when it’s done, since it’s folded from Elephant Hide and it will hold its shape amazingly after that.

In other news Nicolas Terry has started selling Elephant Hide paper in large sheets of previously unavailable colors on his web site, so I ordered a whole bunch.

Finally, my new song, In the Purple Circus is almost finished.  It’s basically a prog metal song, so naturally I added a tenor sax part.  It came out totally wailing, channeling some Michael Brecker energy, screeching and growling in the high altissimo rang, up to the fourth C#.  The next day I added a bari sax way down low to reinforce the tenor, and blend with the overtones of the subsonic bass synthesizer.  Now it’s pretty much down to the final mix, which I hope to share soon.

Big Wheel Keep On Movin’ Along

Spring weather has finally arrived.  Ah, lovely. At least some days, others are stormy, windy and rainy.  Ah well.  Michelle was home for spring break last week, which was fun, but pretty low key.  She went out with her friends a few times, did some homework and studying, and did some baking.  We had game night a couple times, and watched Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part II, which was pretty funny and held up to the tradition of the original.  Probably the funniest bit was when Jesus thinks he’s John Lennon.

The season was well begun by spending time outside.  I raked up half the yard and filled up my available cans.  Need to get some yard bags so I can finish the job.  Also got the Pilot washed waxed and vacuumed on the inside, cleaned all the mud and salt off from the winter.  

And, I had some time to continue with origami.  I completed a model called Dimpled Dodecahedron II, which resembles a soccer ball, and made good progress on my stellated icosahedron. I had done a few studies on that one, but the paper I chose was too small or too soft.  Now I’m doing a nice large one out of elephant hide and medium sized on out of skytone paper.

Fotoz 2022

Well ski season is officially over.  We went one last time last Friday up to Catamount.  There was lots of recent snow, but it had turned warm, so the consistency of the snow was like wet cement, particularly where it hadn’t been groomed.  Then toward the end it started to rain, so that was the end of that.  We did meet up with our friends Seth and Cathy, who have a place nearby, and it was good to catch up and hang out.

Next comes the big push for big springtime, getting the yard in shape, getting the cars serviced, getting the mustang out on the road, and getting on our bikes.  More on that as it develops.

I did manage to get one task done before the end of the winter, and that was to create photo albums for 2022.  You can see them here:

https://zingman.com/fotooz/

https://zingman.com/fotooz/2022/2022-01/
https://zingman.com/fotooz/2022/2022-02/ https://zingman.com/fotooz/2022/2022-03/ https://zingman.com/fotooz/2022/2022-04/ https://zingman.com/fotooz/2022/2022-05/ https://zingman.com/fotooz/2022/2022-06/ https://zingman.com/fotooz/2022/2022-07/

As usual, this site is password protected. Please contact me if you need credentials.

The Epic

Just got back from a ski trip up to Gore Mountain in the Adirondacks.  A month ago it looked like we might not even have a ski season this year, but this was our fourth trip, and our first to a big mountain in many years.  I’ve never been to Gore before.  It’s very nice, on the level of places I’ve skied in Vermont.  It’s a big mountain with lots of terrain and lots of lifts, and the snow conditions were excellent, with fresh powder on top a groomed base of several significant recent snowfalls.  Good as any snow I’ve skied on the last few years.  

The mountain is owed and run by New York State, which is nice in that it’s not all overdeveloped with condos.  However, that means there’s not a lot of places to stay nearby, and it’s a four-hour drive from our house.  So we drove up Friday night and stayed in Lake George, about a half hour away.  The hotel had a nice dinner and a bar featuring maple-bacon old fashions, and a basic breakfast of coffee and muffins.  

Fresh snow was falling Saturday morning, on top of a large snowfall earlier in the week.  We met our friends Mark and Kelly at the base lodge; they came down from the high peaks area to the north.  It was a great day skiing.  I’d finally gotten comfortable on my new skis, and it was great to be able to go all out on good conditions.  The mountain was too big to keep count of how many runs we did, and the runs were much longer than a place like Catamount anyway.  It felt like we went all over the mountain, but we really only explored one quadrant.  We mainly did blue runs, and spent alot of time in a zone served by the North Lift, where there was a good set interconnected trails, all of which were very beautiful.  The lift didn’t have long lines because you had to take several trails and lifts to get there.  We skied for about three hours then tool a break for lunch at a lodge up on the mountain, then went out for another hour and a half until we were exhausted.  The last few runs we went all the way up and down again, over 2,000 feet vertical.

Afterwards we went back to Mark and Kelly’s, about and hour and half further north.  Mark built a fire and made us an excellent dinner and we talked and sipped whiskey until late into the night.  Kelly turned me on the records of Alice Coltrane.

I would definitely go back to Gore for a weekend again.  But not this season cuz it’s an overnight trip.  Still, there’s a big snowstorm on the way upstate, even though it’s rain down in New York City, and we get yet get in one more ski trip before spring arrives.

New Origami

We ended up not going skiing this last weekend, which means I finally had time to follow up and develop some origami ideas I started exploring in Bogota.  I’ve been doing a series of single-sheet polyhedra based on an icosahedron from a sheet of hexagon paper, using a triangle grid. The first step was to figure out how to lay the faces of the finished form into the unfolded sheet so that you’d end up with the right amount of paper at the edges to form a good lock.  Then I tried folding a few times, trying out a few variations to get good at it.  The most successful so far is a Dimpled Icosahedron.  This is a fascinating shape, and a good, strong model that holds together well and can even stand being thrown around.  More coming soon, so watch this space!

Mr. Gone

It is with a mix of sadness and admiration that I note the passing of Wayne Shorter, one of the great sax players of all time, a legendary improviser and innovator, one of the all-time great jazz composers, one of my musical heroes, and just a giant in the world of jazz.  His influence, legacy and spirit will long endure.

First There is a Mountain

We’re back home again and busy with work and other things.  Seems like everything is happening all at once.

First it’s finally ski season.  A week ago we went skiing again up at Catamount.  They have night skiing, which is perfect for us.  It starts at 3pm so you don’t have to get up super early to get there, instead we can get all our chores done Saturday morning and then go.  When we arrive alot of the day skiers are leaving, so it’s easy to get a good parking spot and the lifts and slope get less and less crowded the longer you stay.  You have a few hours of daylight to ski in – now the days are getting longer faster – then you can go in and take a break with a cup of cocoa and come out again for the night session.

A week ago the conditions were warm and icy, but we figured we might not get another shot so we went for it.  After a while found that Mountain View was a pretty good trail and we stayed on that.  We quit after ten runs and met our fried Seth for dinner.

This last weekend it started to snow Saturday morning, just a dusting, but it made us feel hopeful, so we figured we’d go up again and try our luck.  At first it was pretty icy, but snow started falling until there was fresh powder everywhere.  There was a magical moment where suddenly everything was beautiful and the skis felt great and you could really get a good groove going and the mountain was comin’ ’round.  So we stayed out there almost until they closed, a total of eighteen runs. Walter’s Way was the favorite run.

This was three times skiing this season, tying our record last year. We’re still hoping to do an overnight trip a bit further north in two weeks, with bigger mountains and more snow.

In other news, I’ve been working out some new origami ideas since I’ve gotten back from my trip.  I’ve never really explored the icosahedron geometry, even though I mentioned it in my talk.  It’s much easier than the dodecahedron; you can use a triangle grid in a hexagon sheet.  I have two variations I’m working on.  One is a dimpled icosahedron.  It looks kinda like a soccer ball with a pattern of hexagons and pentagons, but the pentagons are dented in.  The other is a stellated icosahedron, where each triangular face of the base shape is replaced with a pyramid.  I did a study of this pattern embedded on a dome back in Bogota, and the design approach causes a set of really cool looking sunken star shapes to emerged between the facets.  Now I’m expanding the pattern to a full sheet so I can close the bottom and the full solid shape.  I have the crease patterns all worked out.  Now it’s just a matter of practicing and perfecting the lock, and then finding some suitable sheets of paper for the final models.  

Next, the Global Jukebox project has sprung back to life.  Anna made a deal to license a bunch of Alan Lomax’s recordings, and now she has a budget again, which injects lots of new energy.  However, I now have a full time day job again, so I can only commit so much time.  I brought Martin in as a subcontractor/partner so we can share the workload.  So far it’s going great.  It’s fun having a collaborator, and new ideas and all.  For onboarding I had him go thru the test script and he spotted alot of minor issues in neglected corners.  We upgraded all our processes including document sharing, getting full-stack local dev environments spun up, and using branches and pull requests in git.  Now we’re all ramped up and the real meat of the work begins.  We have a full year’s roadmap ahead, so more on this as we publish new releases.

Lastly, I’ve gotten back to the home studio recording project the last few weeks.  I’m tracking the vocals for two songs, In the Purple Circus and A Plague of Frogs.  Both have rather challenging parts that use a large range, with big interval jumps, and have some tricky phrasing too, and need to be delivered with some gusto and drama.  I didn’t really think about how it would be to sing them when I wrote the lyrics and melodies.  So I have to work them up.  Also, right now I’m getting over a cold so my voice is not at its strongest. The high notes are a bit thin and scratchy and low notes note always in tune..  Ah well, it’s good to rehearse.  Each session I get a little surer and more expressive.

And … it’s snowing here tonight, and it looks like will be the first real snowfall of the season down here.  That means mo’ better snow up away from the coast.  If there’s no rain the next few days we’ll probably go back to Catamount again this weekend.