OPM DC Operating Status via Twitter →

A few months ago, I created a Twitter to automatically announce the DC operating status maintained by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). This status announces whether or not the Federal government is open or restricted during an emergency. It is most often used to announce snow-related closings and some non-governmental employers rely on this for notifying their employees of weather-related emergencies.. This provides an advantage over other delivery methods provided by OPM in that Twitter can deliverer selected user’s tweets via a text message.

After testing for a few emergencies with (now) 15 followers, I am ready to announce @opmdcstatus publicly. If anyone at OPM wants to discuss making this more effective and efficient, please contact me.

Why I am howardjp

A few weeks ago, someone asked on Facebook why my username is howardjp.  Off to the left on this blog, you will see links to my accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, GitHub, and Twitter.  All of them use the username “howardjp.”  Also, my Google account is “howardjp.”  And this is on my Mac:

howardjp@thermopylae:~$ whoami
howardjp
howardjp@thermopylae:~$

And here is my personal server:

howardjp@byzantine:~$ whoami
howardjp
howardjp@byzantine:~$

When I can select my username, I will pick howardjp.  The reason is that when I was 16, I received an account on the Miami University network and in 1996, they were an OpenVMS-intensive campus (both Alpha and VAX, Linux was making some inroads, however).  So usernames were limited to eight characters and the standard was the first six letters of your last name, your first initial, and your second initial.  I was howardjp.  And ever since, if I can pick my username, it will be howardjp.

The Canterbury Twitter →

Well, I have now completely tweeted The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer.  Actually, it wrapped itself up last week.  Who has a suggestion on what may be tweeted next?