Joshua showed me Facebook Lexicon today, which launched a few months ago but apparently I live under a rock. Lexicon is a feature that lets you see the relative frequencies of words that occur on Wall posts, and it’s really fun to play with.
For instance, comparing “blond” to “blonde”, it appears that the latter is far more popular:
Another interesting faceoff is “you” and “your” vs “u” and “ur”. Â I predict some sort of apocalypse when “u” overtakes “you”.
Individual wall posts are basically throwaway messages, analogous to that whiteboard you had on the door of your dorm room. Not terribly interesting, but being able to see this data in aggregate is much more interesting, especially since the throwaway nature of these posts means that people write in a way that is most natural to them.
I could imagine this being useful for SEO, creating online ad campaigns, or just general zeitgeist tracking. For instance, looking at ‘obama’ and ‘mccain’ in Lexicon shows a real dropoff after the election, with McCain all but dying out and Obama maintaining a slow but steady trickle of wall posts. I imagine we’ll see a spike as we approach the inauguration (yay!).
Staycation remodeling projects have become a tradition in our household, and we finally removed the nasty sheetrock from our hallway over the Christmas break. Demolition on the 24th, hanging panels on 25th, and the obligatory trip to the dump on the 26th. Click on the photo to see how it went!
Mahogany paneling and showers don’t mix. Unfortunately, that’s how most Eichler bathrooms are made, complete with inadequate ventilation. One solution is to leave the skylight and window open, but as the winter rains come and temps drop into the 40′s, this results in lots of uncomfortable mornings and a general meat locker atmosphere that seeps into the entire house. Clearly, we needed a bathroom exhaust fan. But not just ANY bathroom fan. Continue reading →
Today was my first day at Mozilla, where I start my dream job as the new lead for Add-ons. I’m a huge fan of browser extensions and I’m honored to be one of many at Mozilla who help make the web a better place by promoting openness and innovation on the internet.
Highlights of my day- raiding the kitchen for different kinds of iced tea and riding a rickety electric tricycle at ludicrous speeds after sunset on slippery and cold corporate sidewalks. Oh- and thinking about the future of Add-ons for my favorite browser, Mozilla Firefox! I think I’m going to like the new job.
I’m also going to miss the folks at Raptr an awful lot. I liked the product and loved the people there, and Thresh was a capable and demanding boss who pushed me to do my best in both product management and Starcraft. He was gracious enough to invite me to the holiday party last week and I’ll always wear my Raptr hoodie with pride. Most importantly, I know that I’m moving on to new things having left Raptr in better shape than it was in when I arrived there.
After a year of dusty and cold tile floors, we decided to bring in some much needed warmth to our living/dining area with some area rugs constructed from FLOR tiles. We chose FLOR because we were impressed with our neighbor’s wall-to-wall installation and they were explicitly compatible with the radiant heat in our Eichler.
Happily, FLOR makes it easy in today’s internet age by providing an easy way to order samples online. We ordered 12 samples for $12 and settled on Leaf. The tiles arrived less than a week later and they stick to one another with these stickers that chemically bond to the bottom of the tiles, providing a secure and semi-permanent attachment between tiles. One installation tip- be sure to align the arrows on the bottom of the tiles to ensure a seamless appearance.
In late 2005 I was a car enthusiast working for a car company. What I hoped would be a dream job turned into a nightmare of sorrows as I found that my passion and enthusiasm for cars only served to make me aware of the abyss into which we were falling, without any power or ability to do anything about it. Reading about all the issues in Detroit makes me sad for my friends and colleagues there, and I feel the need to write down a few thoughts, so I will. Continue reading →
As the election looms, there’s a proposition on the California ballot that’s getting a lot of attention. Prop 8 is a proposed amendment to the California constitution that strictly defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Clearly, there’s a lot of hysteria about this proposition but I think I can break down my “no on prop 8″ position. Continue reading →
Since we moved into our Eichler, we’ve had a love-hate relationship with the dual sliding garage doors. Of course their unique design and style means that we’d never replace them, but getting out of the car during the rainy winter to pull a heavy door open meant that style had a cost. Since the pine cones from our tree can dent cars, leaving things alone wasn’t an option. Clearly, something had to be done.
We decided to do the garage door openers ourselves because no one wanted to attempt doing a job that would involve powering both doors. There were a few obstacles endemic to all Eichlers, but nothing insurmountable. The key is developing an attachment to the garage doors that takes the overlapping into account. This also means that you have to be extra careful to not operate the wrong door at the wrong time, as various parts will collide and possibly damage your setup.
The basic idea here is that we installed garage door openers in the front corners of our garage, with the rails and trolleys moving sideways and parallel to the path of the doors. The rails themselves will be mounted to a piece of wood that spans the gap between beams.
We went with the cheapest garage door opener we could find, a Chamberlain from Lowes. Because all we have to do is slide the door back and forth, a great deal of power isn’t needed. If you’re feeling fancy, maybe a screw drive opener would be quieter, but there’s really no need to get anything more than the basics here. The other you’ll need is a extension kit for your door. A standard garage door opener is designed with 7 feet of travel. Since the Eichler slider needs at least 7.5 feet to open fully, you’ll need this kit to ensure things open the entire way. While you’re in the store, also pick up some hanger brackets for the garage door opener. This resembles a long piece of flat steel, folded 90 degrees along its length and with lots of holes in it.
In addition to the garage door opener hardware, you will also need to measure the distance between the beams in the garage. Get an 8×1 piece of pine that is high grade (without knots) and long enough to span the distance with a few inches to spare on both sides. Mount this board with screws parallel to the door and centered on the beams, with the front edge about six inches away from the boards. This distance doesn’t have to be exact, but we do need room for the garage door openers. Here’s a picture of the board with both openers installed, so you can see what we did.
Buy four right angle brackets, Home Depot has some Strong-Tie A66 connectors which are the best I’ve seen so far. Look in your lumber section near where the deck supplies are sold. Also pick up some 1 inch lag screws with some washers, you’ll need 8 of them for the angle brackets and another 8 or so to mount the garage door opener hanger to the ceiling. While you are picking up the angle brackets, get about 8 linear feet of 1×4 oak.
I’m going to assume that you or an electrician will install some grounded outlets on the ceiling boards within in the front corners of the garage. This is a fairly straightforward job which shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. You will want to ground your outlets- for us, the cold water pipe leading to the exterior hose faucet was an easy source of grounding.
The next step is to assemble the first garage door opener. Start on the side of the garage with the outer door, which is the door that is closest to the front of the house. This door should be on the side of the garage that has some space set back from the edge of the door. This is important, because the bracket you will attach will require the garage door opener to sit back fairly far from the door.
Build a bracket like this, with the piece of oak attached to the angle brackets with lag screws. I only used two lag screws even though there are holes for four, to allow for greater clearance for the bracket as it must pass above the other door when opening. Also note that the bracket is attached just inboard of the hanging casters for the door. This is critical as it will ensure that the bracket will not hit the other door’s casters as it opens.
Once this bracket is built and attached to the door, hang your garage door opener. It should be fully assembled at this point so simply install the hang bracket in the ceiling of the garage and adjust it so that the opener is set back far enough to allow for the trolley to move back far enough to pull the door completely closed. Attach the header bracket for your track to the pine board you attached between the beams. The opener should be aligned so that the track is parallel to the door’s travel and as close as possible to the door itself. Once the bracket is hung, assemble the arm and bracket for the trolley.
Connect the power and stand back as you enjoy seeing your garage door opener work. If all goes well, the bracket you made should slide in the gap between the inner door and the track as the outer door moves open. Of course, this also means that you should never try opening a door when the other door is open, as it may damage your door.  Be sure to set the force limiting settings to be as low as possible. Also, the electric eye safety switch will not work, as the opener is set up in a ‘push to open, pull to close’ arrangement. This means that when the door is closing, the opener ‘thinks’ it’s opening, and ignores the status of the electric eye. I simply taped mine together.
The other door is much like the first, except we have to make a bracket that won’t interfere with the other door as it opens. It looks like this:
You can see in this picture that the bracket is sightly different, and designed so that it will never interfere with the other door’s bracket.
Anyway, once you’re done you’ll be able to sit back and enjoy the satisfication of doing your own Eicher garage door openers. Here’s a video to give you a preview of what you’ll have when you’re done!
Enjoy- and check out my Garage Door set on Flickr for more pics!
Buy four right angle brackets, Home Depot has some Strong-Tie A66 connectors which are the best I’ve seen so far. Look in your lumber section near where the deck supplies are sold. Also pick up some 1 inch lag screws with some washers, you’ll need 8 of them for the angle brackets and another 8 or so to mount the garage door opener hanger to the ceiling. While you are picking up the angle brackets, get about 8 linear feet of 1×4 oak.
