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You'll find a journal of my thoughts and adventures here. Browse, comment, and stop back often. --TJ
Tom Rutkowski Interview for Judge
October 29, 2008 — TJ RutkowskiVote for Tom Rutkowski: 2008 Candidate for Judge, LaPorte County, Indiana Superior Court No. 2.
Gothamist: Federal Honors for Tenement Museum
October 25, 2008 — TJ RutkowskiI have been to the Tenement Museum twice, and recomended it to several friends. It’s a fantastic place to see and hear how immigrants lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I highly recomend taking a tour, especially if your family came to America through New York.
Earlier this month, the Lower East Side Tenement Museum was one of ten museums and libraries awarded the 2008 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the country’s “highest honor for institutions that make significant and exceptional contributions to their communities.” The Institute of Museum and Library Services honors these institutions for “reach[ing] out to people of all ages and backgrounds and invite them to explore our wonderfully diverse history, culture, and literature.”
Mac Switcher Tip: Why does DNS matter?
October 25, 2008 — TJ RutkowskiI’m coming up on 3 months with my new MacBook Pro and I’ve been extremely happy with the simplicity and consistency of the experience. I still use a ThinkPad running XP at work, and have an XP desktop at home, but the MacBook is my machine of choice. I have, however, struggled with some Internet connection issues.
From Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cliph/
First, my router would occasionally stop resolving domain names. I could ping an IP address directly, but could not load a web page. Ultimately, I blamed my 5(?) year old Belkin router because the problem went away when I switched to an old DLINK router.
Second, and even more annoying, my MacBook was slow opening web pages and downloading anything from the Internet. I performed my own non-scientific speed test by trying to simultaneously load nyt.com on my MacBook and ThinkPad. The ThinkPad was all done within 3 seconds, and the MacBook took 14 seconds to finish opening loading the last image. Huge difference!
I searched and found several people with the same issue, and the same solution. Switching my DNS to OpenDNS solved the problem. Now, my MacBook loads pages almost as fast as my Windows machines…but I have no real understanding why.
Visiting Cooper-Hewitt
October 19, 2008 — TJ RutkowskiLast weekend, I visited the Frick and the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. There were a couple portraits that I immediately connected with at the Frick, but it took me a little longer to appreciate the exhibits at Cooper-Hewitt.
The current exhibition on the first floor is called House Proud. It includes magnificently detailed watercolors of 19th century homes–snapshots of family homes without the families. It feels a little like you’re flipping through real estate ads, looking at images staged to invoke strong and personal feelings.
On the second floor, there is a prototype for affordable housing being built in China. In stark contrast to many of the paintings on the first floor, the example of high-density urban living seemed extremely cold. After seeing the 19th century homes, the 450 square foot footprint for a family of four was difficult to appreciate.
I’ve thought about the two exhibits several times over the past week, and I’m beginning to appreciate the similarities of the two exhibits. Both depict the intimacy of family life, as well as the integration with community. In the watercolors, community is brought into the family home with grand spaces designed for entertaining. The Chinese sense of community comes through in shared space. More than 200 dorm-like apartments share common areas for eating, relaxing, and hosting guests.
I have lived in cities and dorms for much of my life, and it’s impressive that the watercolors took me so deep into the 19th century that I temporarily lost my connection to urban life.
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