A nice way to kick off the long weekend

It's great to see the media's enthusiasm about the Firefox 3 Beta 2! The features and improvements that are being noticed reflect the hard work of our amazing development community.

For your reading pleasure, here are some choice quotes from the coverage from Beta 2:

“Christmas is here a bit early for Firefox fans. Mozilla has just released the second beta for Firefox 3 with some 900 bug fixes and improvements over the previous version, including some new features, user interface enhancements and more.” -- Scott Gilbertson, WIRED

“Overall, it's another very impressive release that reflects the rapidly-growing robustness of Firefox 3.” -- Ryan Paul, Ars Technica

“Firefox 3.0 looks pretty much the same as it did before. So the changes are subtle, then when you find them, they become profound.” -- Scott M. Fullton III, BetaNews

“The Firefox design team has obviously put a lot of thought into helping users remember and find the pages that they want to visit.” -- Stan Beer, iTWire

“Well, whatever the interface evolves into, I have no complaints about Firefox 3 Beta 2. Anyone who is still using Internet Explorer - whatever version - really needs to take a look at this even though it's still only meant for reviewers. However, it would be nice if Mozilla remembered to also cater to its most loyal fan base - Linux users.” -- Stan Beer, iTWire

Ken Kovash Day Declared

Ken Kovash Day Declared

Millions of KoKo fans cheer

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. - December 19, 2007 - Today has officially been named Ken Kovash Day. This day honors the most statistically significant man in recent memory. In its first year, KoKo (also sometimes called KeKo) fans plan to make Ken Kovash Day an annual event.

"At first I though Ken was actually a gorilla, because I kept hearing how 'Koko' would do some acquisition funnel analysis for our department meeting. It was confusing, because I wasn't sure gorillas were that advanced with marketing analytics yet."
said, David Rolnitzky. "Now I know, that there are few beasts or people who could do the type of top-notch analysis that Ken provides."

"Simply put, I'm crazy for Koko," said Mary Colvig.

"I'm such a fan of Ken's that just to feel smart, I've started calling myself the denominator," said Alex Polvi. "As the denominator, I hope I can rise to brilliance that is the Numerator."

Kovash, aka the Numerator at Mozilla, began his career at Boomerang, followed by a brief stint at Yahoo. He also worked as a Research Associate at Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory. In 2006, Kovash graduated with an MBA from University of Chicago. He has an undergraduate degree in Economics from UC Berkeley.

Pro-SID

This month at work, the men in the office have been observing a little thing they're calling NSID (no shaving in december).

Found this article today and thought it was worth sharing.

i <3 dc

scanning the washington post home page this morning.
can't help it.
after almost a decade and 3000 miles between us, the washpost is still my home page.

ran across this headline today:
D.C. Has Weekend Free of Shootings

in most other cities, if there *is* a shooting, that's the news.
not the absence of shootings.

planes overhead

Right now, there are about 10 or so planes circling San Francisco in non-airport flight patterns and at a variety of heights. It's not Blue Angels. SF has been de-militarized for as long as I've lived here.

I used to live in DC where planes, helicopters, shock trauma airlifts, ambulances, presidential motor brigades, foreign dignitary police escorts, navy blue modified chevy tahoes and metrobus re-routing were almost daily occurrences.

I ran out to the deck like a little kid to investigate what sounded like thunder and found twinkling lights overhead. Then momentarily worried that we were at war and that nobody bothered to tell San Francisco.

If you live here, you understand that it's entirely possible.

Off to bed.

musings on gay marriage

i've been thinking a lot about weddings lately. almost non-stop. it's terrifying to spend the bulk of your life as a tomboy and then suddenly find yourself enthralled with bridal magazines, wedding dress shopping and gift registries. very strange.

ash and i are getting married next summer. it seems like a long way off. i've observed that this is a coastal thing. if you're eight months out on the west coast, you've got forever. if you're eight months out on the east coast, you best get your ass in gear and start planning!

so, the more i've been thinking about the prospect of spending the rest of my life with someone i can't imagine spending my life without...the more i've been thinking about the segment of the population who are unable to marry. particularly in san francisco, where gay is part of the fabric of our city and pride is a city-wide celebration, it's hard to imagine that people spending their lives together are unable to call it marriage. there's a whole language to dance around the concept. partner. significant other. companion. domestic partner. roommate. bleh.

a couple of years ago, gavin newsom effectively legalized gay marriage within san francisco. couples from around the country came to sf's city hall to get married. the rest of the country had a fit. it's largely cited as the reason bush got elected to a second term.

without making any judgement about the sanctity of marriage from a religious perspective, it's hard to see why from a purely civic perspective, marriage for anyone who wants it wouldn't be an option. if straight people can get married in vegas on a whim and have it annulled once the booze wears off, how come gay people can't get married?

i'm looking toward this august, feeling amazingly lucky to have found my besheret. i hope that we get to a point where everyone can experience this feeling - regardless of whom they've decided to love for the rest of their lives.