Jeff Lane dot Org

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The devastating attack led America directly into WWII after years of ignoring what was happening in Europe and then helping our allies without "technically" being involved by providing them materiel via the Lend-Lease program.

But on this day, seventy years ago, Japan dragged the United States kicking and screaming into a two theaters war that would last until the final surrender on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri in 1945. It was a war that would span the globe, be fought on many continents and two main theaters. It was a war that brought the US together in a way that has never been seen again. It brought us into the nuclear age and showed us the devastation that we were capable of.

It was fought by what's been dubbed as "The Greatest Generation", whether they fought on the battlefield, on the sea or in the air. Some fought by building the airplanes, tanks, guns, bombs and other necessities of war. Others fought by buying war bonds and it was at time when "Support our Troops" meant so much more than a yellow magnet on the back of your mini-van.

On 8th December, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave this famous speech, urging the declaration of war:

Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with the government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.

This morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces - with the unbounding determination of our people - we will gain the inevitable triumph - so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

So today, even if only briefly, take a moment to think about your grandparents. No matter where they are from, it's highly likely that they were affected by World War II in some way. Think about those who died, the soldiers, the civilians, the six million Jews who were killed in Nazi concentration camps, or simply shot in the streets or in the forests, buried in mass graves or burned in large furnaces.

Think of the millions killed by the Japanese across Asia. Estimates of civilians killed by the Japanese range anywhere from 5.5 Million to over 20 million.

Think about those people the next time someone says war never solved anything. Going to war stopped the total extermination of the Jewish people. War stopped the German military and Adolph Hitler from taking over ALL of Europe. War brought freedom back to the people who lived in German occupied countries like France, Belgium, Holland. War stopped the Japanese march through China, Malaysia, the Philippines and thousands of other places in the Pacific theater, preventing the torture and murder of millions more civilians.

War is not a thing to be taken lightly, but despite cries for peace, sometimes fighting is the only way so end an evil act, After all, who's more evil? The evil-doer, or the person that allows the evil to be done without trying to stop it?

I've got a long list of things that I've been meaning to write about. It's an ever growing linked list of items that I thought would make good fodder for the interwebz but I've been so busy for so very long that I really find it difficult to take time these days to just sit and write. Sooner or later, however, I have to start. I'm funny like that. I've got dozens of projects waiting in the wings, just waiting for the time or energy for me to get them started. This reboot of jefflane.org is one of those things and it's something that is long overdue.

So I thought I'd start off with something that seems fairly innocuous. Title says it all, really. And this should be a simple answer, right? Well, things aren't always as you'd think.

As most everyone knows, I've worked for Canonical for some time now. Canonical is the company behind Ubuntu, a Linux distribution based on Debian. My part in the ecosystem is that of Hardware Certification Engineer, now part of the Professional Services and Engineering team within Canonical. So going by my title alone, you'd imagine that I do some sort of engineering related to the certification of hardware. And you'd be correct. Partly.

But in this business, as in many others, the truth is often far different than the impression. People often think that because I work mostly from home and travel internationally that I spend a lot of time on the couch in my boxers playing video games and eating Cheezits, or drinking in bars, carousing with foreign women and exploring strange new landscapes. Well, that's partially true, but only just.

So lets start with my daily work. I read and respond to e-mail. A LOT of e-mail some days. Part of my function is the external voice of Hardware Certification. When someone, be it a Canonical employee, an Ubuntu community member, a potential or current customer or anyone, for that matter, has a question about the Ubuntu Hardware Certification programme, I am the one who responds by pointing them in the right direction, answering what I can and helping explain policy and test procedures.

I also sit in on several ongoing projects and that generates a lot of background work, researching technology, equipment, investigating tools and other things. I write testing tools that become part of the checkbox test suite and are used in the Ubuntu Friendly programme, a community driven hardware validation initiative. The tools I write could be anything from simple shell code to complex programs and manual test cases.

From time to time I also make improvements to the two websites my team is based around, the outward facing Ubuntu Certification Site and an internal site that we use for hardware tracking and as a customer portal.

I'm not immune to meetings and may at any time be on the phone, in a meeting on either Freenode or Canonical IRC, or perhaps on a voice conference using Mumble. We're not doing video conferencing yet but that may happen sooner or later.

Somewhere in the middle of all that I also review hardware certification test submissions, both internal and external. I pass or fail certifications based on what I see. I write the planning for the Server certification program and help steer its direction. I maintain relationships with several vendors and help them get their hardware certified and published to the web.

I also do a lot of community oriented things. I perform ISO testing at development Milestones. I have a Freescale i.MX53 ARM development board that I use to test and tinker with embedded Ubuntu and Linaro images. I have a server that I used to develop server related tests as well as monkey around with virtualization technologies like Xen and VMware and KVM. I answer questions and participate in discussions on mailing lists, and occasionally forums and places like Ask Ubuntu". All that doesn't even start to cover the travel.

The travel isn't anywhere as near as glorious as it may seem. Yes, I've seen some amazing things. I've been to Stonehenge. I've crossed London Bridge. I've drank pints and eaten a LOT of meat pies at the Eagle and Child Pub, the place where J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis gathered with the other Inklings and developed stories that would end up enthralling generations of readers. I've walked the streets of Prague, Taipei, Brussels and Bruges. I've seen Switzerland, Germany, and France. But the thing no one seems to really understand is that all that is really only a very small part of my travel. The vast majority is getting from point A to point B and then sitting in a lot of meetings.

In an average year, I travel about 8 to 10 weeks. At least 4 of those are week long meeting events. Some of them are specifically to provide hands-on testing in one of our three labs. Others may be for team sprints to accomplish a set list of goals in a short amount of time. Some of them are mostly so I can check up on my labs.

Oh, did I mention earlier that I also oversee the Lab Operations for the Hardware Certification team? I purchase equipment, make sure things run smoothly, poke IS when I need to get something done quickly. I plan out updates to the labs and try to cope with the ever-growing influx of test hardware.

So while I may find a day during a weekend, or a few hours at night to go out, my going out is mostly limited to dinner, walking around the city I happen to be in, and maybe, MAYBE catching something cool, like a museum. And I've seen some pretty cool museums.

But the travel isn't all as glamorous as people who don't travel think. There's the hours spent standing in line. First at the ticket counter to check my bags. Then at the Airport security. Then the lines to board the plane, take a piss or just buy some food while I wait for that next flight. The lines to pick up my baggage at the other end. Lines to get the shuttle bus or taxi to the hotel. Lines everywhere. There's the hours spent sitting on my butt in random airports just waiting. There's my personal favorite, the line to get back into the US.

So all in all, while it may seem like an easy job with James Bond style world travel, off on secret missions, meeting up with gorgeous spies and thwarting the nefarious machinations of bald yet mustachioed villains, it's really far more pedestrian. Enjoyable, but pedestrian.

And that's a brief glimpse into what I do. Now I must head off to bed. I have another day of work ahead of me, and a few more days until once more I'm headed out of the country. I'm headed back to my favorite place in the world, Taipei. But more on that later.

I have a certain ritual reserved for Football Day, that magical day each week in the fall when I get to watch Virginia Tech or another favored team play the noble game of Football. The ritual involves, usually, a beer or three, chips and salsa, hummus and rice crackers and most important of all: buffalo wings.

I've gotten wings down to a science, fried just so long in peaut oil, not vegetable oil, for that extra crispness. Sauced using a special blend of off the shelf sauces I keep in a secret location. Dipped in a nice, chunky bleu cheese dressing... Mmmm, delicious!

And today would have been the same, were it not for a chance encounter at Bella Donna Pizzaria the other night when Dana and I went out for some delicious Italian. Turns out that Al, the Shrimp Guy, was in town with another load of massive Gulf shrimp, fresh from the docks.

As we were headed out, Al and Donna offered some shrimp that Al had cooked up on the fly in a manner I'd not tried before. It's called Barbeque shrimp, and as Al pointed out, has nothing to do with Barbeques as we think of them. His version was so good that when Football Day came this week, I decided to try some for myself instead. So here's the recipe I made up based on some Googling and learning that there is no actual recipe, everyone has their own.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds jumbo or large shrimp, fresh, shell on, not frozen
• 1 stick of real, salted butter, not that margarine crap
• 1/2 bottle of beer (I used a Chimay Trappiste Ale)
• 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 3 teaspoons Cayenne pepper
• 3 teaspoons basil leaves
• 2 teaspoons Old Bay
• Tobasco to taste

Instructions:

• Rinse off shrimp and pat dry
• Melt butter in a large skillet on medium high heat
• Add rest of ingredients and mix well
• Stir constantly until mix starts to boil
• Add shrimp to mix
• Cook shirmp until good and pink, about 4 - 5 minutes per side.
• Remove shrimp and place in a large, wide bowl (think Pasta bowl)
• Continue stirring mix until about half the liquid remains
• Pour mix over shrimp, let them cool just a bit, peel, eat and enjoy!

And that's just one of literally thousands of variations, and it was delicious :)

Safety Note: I strongly advise that, when eating, you be careful when peeling shrimp. I accedentally squireted some of the mix into my eye while peeling one particularly fat shrimp, and given the amount of lemon and hot pepper in the juice, that's a rather uncomfortable experience, to say the least..