At work, I’ve been ex­per­i­ment­ing with the big three Dis­trib­uted Version Control Systems, Git, Mercurial, and Bazaar, on Windows over the last ten days.

Pavel and Eric have been singing the praises of Git and git-svn on their Mac and Linux boxes re­spec­tive­ly for the last few months. Git allows them to check in small changes locally without perturbing the build. The ease of branching and merging allows them to work in more than one branch at a time at a lower cost than Subversion did. Most of our dev team continue to work in Subversion on Windows boxes. git-svn allows Pavel and Eric to easily in­ter­op­er­ate with the Subversion server. Pavel is …continue.

Are we really this bad?

(This one’s for Jacob and Will.)

There was only sour note to the huge victories in Tuesday’s elections: the passage of Propo­si­tion 8, the anti-gay marriage amendment in California. A deceitful campaign preyed on voters’ fears and homophobia. The No on 8 campaign was massively outspent and not very effective.

I’m convinced that marriage equality will come, but this is a setback. Gay couples, who only gained the right to marry earlier this year in California, have lost that right.

The Mormon Church was the prime mover behind the Yes on 8 campaign, donating $19 million, nearly 80% of the total raised. A backlash is brewing. John Aravosis of Amer­i­ca­Blog is trying to organize a boycott of Utah. Others …continue.

I’m delighted! Today, the American people made an excellent decision and chose the right man for the job.

Obama fought a long, hard campaign, rising from underdog to an assured victory. He ran an exemplary, innovative campaign, that empowered millions of grassroots activists. He shattered barriers and inspired voters.

He won by a huge margin in the Electoral College, giving himself un­equiv­o­cal legitimacy. He’ll need it. The country has deep problems and it’s not going to be an easy presidency.

Nev­er­the­less, I look forward to the next four years.

Neal Stephenson’s massive, sprawling Baroque Cycle began with Quick­sil­ver, continued in The Confusion, and concludes with The System of the World.

1714: Daniel Waterhouse has been recalled from Boston by Princess Caroline of Ansbach, soon to be Princess of Wales, after the last Stuart monarch dies, so that he can intervene in the rancorous dispute between Newton and Leibniz over who invented calculus. The plot is too complex to summarize, but it’s a glorious farrago of coun­ter­feit­ing gold coins, alchemy, Solomonic gold, …continue.

A sequel to Dead I Well May Be.

June 16, 2004: the Bloomsday centenary. Michael Forsythe’s arch­neme­sis Bridget Callaghan needs him. Her eleven-year-old daughter has gone missing in Belfast, and Forsythe may be only one who can find her.

In the course of one very long day that loosely re­ca­pit­u­lates the events of Joyce’s Ulysses, Forsythe cuts a bloody swathe through the criminal underworld of Belfast.

Gripping, if over the top.

I’m voting for Obama, which is no secret to anyone who knows me. I agree with his policies and I’m impressed by the man. Over the last two years, he’s run an excellent campaign, going from underdog to all-but certain victory. Clearly, he has executive ability.

Moreover, McCain is the wrong man for the job. I strongly disagree with his policies (es­sen­tial­ly Bush’s), his campaign is thrashing spas­ti­cal­ly, and he dis­qual­i­fied himself by picking that blithering idiot Palin as his VP.

I’m more worried about Christine Gregoire, who is running for re-election as Governor of Washington. She’s un­com­fort­ably close in the polls to Dino Rossi. The Building Industry As­so­ci­a­tion of Washington and the Republican Governers’ …continue.

Neal Stephenson’s massive, sprawling Baroque Cycle began with Quick­sil­ver and continues in the aptly named Confusion. The book in­ter­weaves two novels, Bonanza and The Juncto, taking place between 1689 and 1702. Bonanza follows Jack Shaftoe, as he and other galley slaves in Algiers capture Spanish gold of particular sig­nif­i­cance to some highly placed alchemists, and make their way ever eastward, through Cairo, India, Manila, and Mexico. The Juncto deals primarily with Eliza, now a French duchess, and her remarkable financial derring-do.

The previous book concerned itself with the …continue.

As I mentioned last month, I par­tic­i­pat­ed in this year’s AIDS Walk this morning.

I raised $1106 online, handily exceeding my goal of $750. I also raised another $115 in cash and checks at the fundrais­ing barbecue that we threw on September 27th.

Thanks to the 20 people who sponsored me!

If you’re reading this post directly on my blog, you have probably noticed that the top section in the sidebar is “George Reilly’s shared items”.

[This post is describing how this blog worked when it ran on DasBlog]

If you’re reading this through an RSS reader, let me tell you that that section contains various items that I’m sharing through Google Reader. Mostly these are items that I’ve read from blogs that I’m subscribed to in Google Reader, but I’m also using the Note in Reader book­marklet to share arbitrary webpages. If I choose, I can add a note to each item that I share.

Formerly, I would oc­ca­sion­al­ly summon up the energy to post some …continue.