Jan. 6th, 2009
Livejournal slashes network admins down to the bone.
[Hat tip to Charlie Stross]
LiveJournal, the San Francisco-based arm of Sup, a Russian Internet startup, has cut about 20 of 28 employees – and offered them no severance, we're told.Valleywag occasionally gets things wrong, but this does not bode well. Bradfitz, where are you when your people need you in their hour of need?
The company's product managers and engineers were laid off, leaving only a handful of finance and operations workers – which speaks to a website to be left on life support. Matt Berardo, a Yahoo executive hired on last summer, is also believed to be gone.
The quirky site, part blog and part social network, is best known for its users' weird obsessions.
[Hat tip to Charlie Stross]
Dinah has passed way.
Jan. 6th, 2009 06:29 pm
Dinah
We took her to the vet because her inability to eat was becoming much more serious. She had a growth under her tongue that was making it impossible for her to eat, and Dr. Emily said that with the kidney and neurological damage she'd already suffered, our alternatives were to either put her down, or let her starve to death. We could have intubated her, I guess, but that's not... it just didn't seem right. Omaha and I talked it over and decided it was time.
I blogged back in March of last year the sense of caretaker's guilt I felt sometimes wondering when Dinah was going to die and when I could stop the heroic efforts of watering her and prepping her meds every night and all the rituals that went into caring for a geritric cat. The doctor had said she had six to eight months; she lasted 22 months. The past two weeks had been hard for her, the decline rapid and painful to watch.
I miss her already. Kouryou-chan said she'd never seen me cry before. We walked in the door and I wondered where Dinah was, why wasn't she at the top of the stairs complaining that I hadn't petted her yet. Then I remembered that her body is in a box outside in the deep freezer, awaiting burial, and her spirit has moved on to somewhere else.
I'm still fighting the tears. It's still hard. I loved the burning cat, the bloody cat, and the cat with the pop-top head, and I miss her terribly.
Cat Blogging: The Hanging Cat
Jan. 6th, 2009 09:46 pmOmaha and I got Dinah back in early 1993 or so, from our friend Indra, who gave us this little black furball about two and a half years old. Dinah moved in with us when we had a very small apartment. At the time, she was an outdoor cat, spry enough to leap up onto the kitchen counter and then out the window over the sink, so we didn't have a problem keeping her box clean. She still had one, in the back of the closet opposite the kitchen, but she almost never used it except in winter when the door was closed.
The apartment had no screens over the windows, which swung out from casements along the top. Dinah could leap three or four feet at a time, and got it into her head one day that she could leap out the bedroom windows just as readily as she could the kitchen.
The building is on a very steep slope-- such that the kitchen was sunk into the hillside and the kitchen casement window, on the outside, was about knee-high. The bedroom windows, on the other hand, were almost ten feet off the ground.
Omaha heard a loud sound from the bedroom, and went to go look. She didn't see anything odd, so she called out, wondering if it was the cat. "Dinah? Dinah?"
She said she heard the most pitiful "Meow?" sound come from outside the window. She looked out the window and found Dinah hanging from the windowshade cord; it had gotten caught around her haunches and she was just dangling from it, staring down at the ground very far away, looking very pitiful.
Omaha jumped up onto the hood of my car to reach Dinah and disentangle her. The cat was none the worse for it, but she never jumped out that window again.
The apartment had no screens over the windows, which swung out from casements along the top. Dinah could leap three or four feet at a time, and got it into her head one day that she could leap out the bedroom windows just as readily as she could the kitchen.
The building is on a very steep slope-- such that the kitchen was sunk into the hillside and the kitchen casement window, on the outside, was about knee-high. The bedroom windows, on the other hand, were almost ten feet off the ground.
Omaha heard a loud sound from the bedroom, and went to go look. She didn't see anything odd, so she called out, wondering if it was the cat. "Dinah? Dinah?"
She said she heard the most pitiful "Meow?" sound come from outside the window. She looked out the window and found Dinah hanging from the windowshade cord; it had gotten caught around her haunches and she was just dangling from it, staring down at the ground very far away, looking very pitiful.
Omaha jumped up onto the hood of my car to reach Dinah and disentangle her. The cat was none the worse for it, but she never jumped out that window again.
Cat Blogging: The Missing Cat
Jan. 6th, 2009 09:50 pmWhen Dinah first moved in with us, it wasn't all wonderful. She didn't know what to make of her new surroundings and her new owners. She seemed fine for the first couple of weeks.
Our apartment at the time was on a very busy arterial, four lanes plus a turn lane, leading off the freeway and past the steel plant up into the heart of the Delridge district. Across the street from us was a multipurpose office building most notable for the big sign outside that read "Kidney Center." Dinah decided one day to try and cross that street.
Omaha and I didn't know this, mind you. We just knew that Dinah had gone missing. We were upset; we'd lost another cat that way, he just disappeared one night-- although Omaha has suspicions that a neighbor killed Hershey because we'd called in a noise complaint on a drunken, rowdy party several nights before that. But we had no such neighbor problems at the old Delridge apartment. Dinah was just gone.
A few days later I was walking home from the bus stop, up the other side of the road. I heard a familiar meow come from the bushes of the Kidney Center, and I looked over and there was Dinah, looking very cold and lost. "Dinah?" She meowed and took a step toward me, tentatively. I think she still was unclear on the concept of me as her caretaker.
I grabbed her and wrapped her in the windbreaker I was wearing and ran across the street shouting, "Omaha! Open the door! Open the door!" I must have sounded hysterical but then I'd just rescued our lost cat, so maybe I was a bit.
We were so grateful to have her home, and she was grateful to be home. And the street was another thing she never tried again. I think she was happier with the vast field of brambles behind the apartment anyway.
Our apartment at the time was on a very busy arterial, four lanes plus a turn lane, leading off the freeway and past the steel plant up into the heart of the Delridge district. Across the street from us was a multipurpose office building most notable for the big sign outside that read "Kidney Center." Dinah decided one day to try and cross that street.
Omaha and I didn't know this, mind you. We just knew that Dinah had gone missing. We were upset; we'd lost another cat that way, he just disappeared one night-- although Omaha has suspicions that a neighbor killed Hershey because we'd called in a noise complaint on a drunken, rowdy party several nights before that. But we had no such neighbor problems at the old Delridge apartment. Dinah was just gone.
A few days later I was walking home from the bus stop, up the other side of the road. I heard a familiar meow come from the bushes of the Kidney Center, and I looked over and there was Dinah, looking very cold and lost. "Dinah?" She meowed and took a step toward me, tentatively. I think she still was unclear on the concept of me as her caretaker.
I grabbed her and wrapped her in the windbreaker I was wearing and ran across the street shouting, "Omaha! Open the door! Open the door!" I must have sounded hysterical but then I'd just rescued our lost cat, so maybe I was a bit.
We were so grateful to have her home, and she was grateful to be home. And the street was another thing she never tried again. I think she was happier with the vast field of brambles behind the apartment anyway.
When Dinah was young, she loved to hunt, and Omaha and I routinely chose neighborhoods where she'd have that opportunity. It's not hard to find even modestly priced neighborhoods with large swaths of at least green if not forested land around here. Delridge is a run-down neighborhood, and the hilly land makes development painful, so it's still got its share of hillsides covered in bush and tree.
Dinah brought home large bugs, snakes, and mice from time to time. Omaha once found a garden snake that had somehow escaped into the (then unused) fireplace. Dinah was on one side of the spark grill, and the snake on the other, and they were eyeing each other warily. The snake had a nasty gash along its side.
Dead mice she would leave on the doorstep. Live mice she would bring inside, play with for a while, and then ignore, leaving it up to Omaha and I to chase the poor critters out.
The worst was the mole. Remember that casement window I wrote about? Dinah caught a mole right outside that window and began to torture the poor beast with all the ferocity an adult cat can muster. The screams were horrendous. High pitched squealing that went on and on, a voice that truly screamed "Halp! She's murdering me!" I still hear that poor mole sometimes, in my nightmares.
Dinah brought home large bugs, snakes, and mice from time to time. Omaha once found a garden snake that had somehow escaped into the (then unused) fireplace. Dinah was on one side of the spark grill, and the snake on the other, and they were eyeing each other warily. The snake had a nasty gash along its side.
Dead mice she would leave on the doorstep. Live mice she would bring inside, play with for a while, and then ignore, leaving it up to Omaha and I to chase the poor critters out.
The worst was the mole. Remember that casement window I wrote about? Dinah caught a mole right outside that window and began to torture the poor beast with all the ferocity an adult cat can muster. The screams were horrendous. High pitched squealing that went on and on, a voice that truly screamed "Halp! She's murdering me!" I still hear that poor mole sometimes, in my nightmares.
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