I didn't realize how much mental space and emotional energy tenure took up (I guess I did in theory, but didn't recognize the real toll of it) until I came back to work this month not having to think about it.  It's pretty amazing how much more focused I feel on mentoring students without the crazy pressure, and publication balls in the air. I have three students working on independent research projects with me at present and two of them are carried over from last year.  Being able to sit with drafts of their papers and focus on one thing at a time this week has been a revelation! I hope settling in to this new phase continues to create more normalcy.  I was commenting to a colleague that in academia we all spend so many years clawing our way through (grad. school, field research, dissertation, job market, tenure process, etc.) that now that I've finally come out the other end it's hard to rest with the concept of just "being where you are" rather than continually struggling for what comes next.  Phew.

(adapted from Marion Cunningham's The Breakfast Book)

• 2 packages dry yeast
• 1/3 cup warm water (~ 105 degrees F)
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 1/3 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 t salt
• 2 t nutmeg (freshly grated, if possible)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3-1/2 cups all-purpose flour + 1 cup whole wheat flour, combined
• 4 T (1/2 stick) butter, melted
  
• 1 cup sugar + 2 t cinnamon, combined
  

Put the milk and shortening in a saucepan and gently heat until the shortening is melted.  Cool until lukewarm - about the same temp as the water for the yeast.

Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water in a small bowl; stir and dissolve for 5 minutes.

Put the yeast in a large mixing bowl and add the milk mixture; stir in the 1/4 cup sugar, salt, nutmeg, eggs, and 2 cups of the flour mixture.  Beat briskly until well blended.  Add the remaining flour and beat until smooth.  Cover the bowl and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Dust a board generously with flour (I used about 2 cups of flour during this part of the process) and turn the dough onto it.  Pat the dough into a circle about 1/2 inch thick.  Use a 3-inch doughnut cutter and cut out the doughnuts, placing them (and the doughnut holes) on greased baking sheets, 1 inch apart.  They don't spread much; they rise.  Preheat the oven to 435 degrees F.  Let the doughnuts rest and rise for 20 minutes, uncovered.

Bake about 10 minutes, until they have a touch of golden brown.  Remove from the oven.  Have the melted butter and a brush ready.  Brush each doughnut and doughnut hole with butter and roll in the cinnamon sugar.  Serve hot.

I have used dreamwidth in the past and continue to do so from time to time because it is a thoughtfully designed, professionally managed, user supported site that genuinely listens and responds to the needs of its user community. I recommend it as a social blogging platform with a strong, rich set of access controls.

On September 24 I wrote a post locked to a group of authenticated people on this site.

Shortly after I wrote that post, Tom Boutell commented on it with the concern that the information in the post was available to Google and would be cached.

• Tom may have overlooked the visual indicators of access on the post and erred in his statement
• The site may have failed to honour my request to limit access to the post
• Tom may have tested access, found it was effectively public, and warned me
• Tom's software or privilege model may be buggy
• Tom's understanding of access rights may be deeply flawed (this certainly matches discussions you can find elsewhere on this site: it takes a lot of hammers to convince the guy to not dismiss out of hand requests and explanations from people who want to give him a chance and use his stuff)
• There may be a different explanation

The result when I went to bed was that I do not trust this site, nor anything else authored by Boutell, to honour access controls I place on my data. When I continued writing this, having received an email in the interim that started "Oh lord, Dawn. I am so sorry," nothing has substantially changed. I don't want to use this platform and I certainly don't want to encourage people I like and trust to use it.

It will take more than an apology to build my trust of Tom -- and more importantly, of a system he designs, writes, or maintains -- to a level where I will be comfortable placing anything other than "for public consumption" materials on this site or any other authored or co-authored by Boutell.

This is where I'm supposed to answer the question "Who the devil is this guy?", right?  The answers are not too different from what they were five years ago, kinda different from ten years ago, noticeably different from twenty years ago, and so on.

I live in Colorado, as do at least a couple other guys with my name.  I'm the one who also announces roller derby under the name "Brad Example", and if you see the name "Squiddhartha" online, unless it's referring to a west coast band, it's probably me.  I'm an IT manager who still occasionally gets his hands dirty mucking about with code, at a major national scientific research institution.  Happily married for 20 years, with sons in 4th and 11th grades, plus a sweet-tempered basket case of a pit bull and a giant fluffy white brat of a cat.  My wife teaches kids to swim, including itty-bitty babies.  I also help out at StarFest and Nan Desu Kan, two Denver-based cons.

I'm a life-long science and technology geek, with particular interests in astrophysics, aerospace, and paleontology, and also languages.  I'm an atheist and what would have once been called a moderate but by modern standards is a liberal hippy freak.  If any of that bothers you... sorry.  (Note: not actually sorry.)

That's the nutshell version.  You wanna know more, stay tuned.

I don't like to spend my post for the day talking about the site itself, which sort of misses the point. But privacy is exceedingly important, and today I spoke cavalierly about it in a way that rebounded on me. As well it should have.

Other sites have been through some nasty issues around privacy lately. I am not bulletproof and need to take it at least as seriously. Especially with an audience of people who take it very seriously.

So what happened today? Nothing to do with the code or the privacy of your posts, I'm relieved to say. Just a dumb, dumb personal screwup in which I casually warned a friend (hopefully still a friend) that they had posted publicly. Because I wasn't paying enough attention to see that they hadn't.

"Tom that is totally ridiculous, you built this site! You know how it works, you coded it!" Yes it is totally ridiculous and I have no adequate explanation for my behavior. My inadequate explanation, if you care to hear it, is that I was rushing around doing way too damn much this evening and didn't think through what I was doing. I was not in programmer mode, I was in friend mode, and I was doing a crappy job of it.

However, learning from my dipshit mistakes— and owning my own frailties— is important. I'm thinking it's not enough to show a "this post is public" warning only when someone clicks reply.

I think there should be a lock icon visible to everyone who can read the post. If it ain't there, it's public. No ambiguity.

Although, obviously, it should not offer any details about exactly who is allowed to read it (except to the author), everyone reading a post should be able to tell instantly if it is public or not.

I will be working on this promptly. I will also be reviewing the steps I'm taking to secure the server against attack. If the server itself is compromised, everything else is a moot point. We do not actually know if this has ever happened to other social networks. We can only take their word for it.

This experience brought me up short and made me realize that while we haven't had an actual security breach yet, we will if I don't treat privacy as job one. I will be giving it an appropriate level of attention in future.

REDACTED PENDING CONFIRMATION ABOUT SECURITY.

DO NOT TRUST LOCKS ON THIS SITE TO KEEP INFORMATION PRIVATE.

So, let me tell you something about long term chronic pain. I haven't been cleared to speak for anyone else, although I bet I get some agreement, so anyway this my own POV, okay?

You feel reduced or even devoid of value. A lot. You know you aren't able to do everything you once could, and you know people can't see the cause but they surely can see that effect. And so you -- like everyone else -- hopefully do all you can, and find ways in which you can contribute, but you don't fail to notice how it doesn't fit what other people do and you wonder about expectations. And by wonder, I mean you beat yourself up and then get defensive.

I do what I can. I do it when I can and to the extent I can. I think I'm pretty damn helpful. If you don't, that's your thing, not mine. Or that's what I'm going to be telling myself. And if you're held back by a physical condition that's joined the opposition, please know that doing your best, whatever it may be, is pretty damn good, too.