Did I say that out loud?

20 October 2006

Goin' Mobile

And we'll see how it feels
Goin' mobile
Keep me movin'
-Pete Townshend

Okay, I'm trying out blog posting from my PDA phone. Let's see how this works....

19 October 2006

Goodbye, Habeas Corpus

Keith Olbermann

I have two things for your consideration now that the Military Commissions Act is law:

First, from WBEZ in Chicago, This American Life episode 310: Habeas Schmaebeas. It is a detailed account of how our government has denied Habeas at Guantanamo Bay and the gross injustice that has resulted. To listen, Click Here.

Next Keith Olbermann expresses the outrage we should all feel in this week's Special Comment:

Text Version

Return of The Hunter

Duran Duran

Every season has its familiar little joys we look forward to. Autumn, for me, has leaves, apples, and Halloween. It also marks the return of Orion, The Hunter, to the night sky. I never go out looking for Orion. Still, every year there comes a night when I glance up at the night sky, and there are the three bright stars, all in a row, that comprise his belt.

Like the Ursa Major, the "Big Dipper," Orion is a constellation that dominates the sky. You can't miss it - even in the light polluted skies of central NJ. And no wonder. Orion is home to six of the fifty brightest stars in the sky (our sun included). Two are in the top ten. Rigel is the blue-white star at his left knee. Betelgeuse is the reddish star at his right shoulder. I just read that Betelgeuse is one of the largest stars observed, with a radius roughly the same as that of Jupiter's orbit.

My favorite part of Orion, though, is the Orion Nebula. In clear dark skies, even the naked eye can see that there's something in Orion's sword that isn't a star. With a decent pair of binoculars you can clearly make out the nebula and maybe one or two of the young stars within. View it through a telescope and you're in for a treat. It quickly fills the eyepiece with purple clouds and tiny pinpoints of light from newborn stars. If I were Carl Sagan I'd have a more eloquent description, but for me it's just cool.

Tonight it's cloudy, so you can't see any stars. It's been a week since I spotted Orion. I meant to post this sooner, but I seem to have less blogging time, lately. But the idea stayed with me, so here it is.

12 October 2006

More lies: Bush and so-called Faith-Based Initiatives

President George W. Bush

Kill Bill: Volume 2

Keith Olbermann's open war on Bush is his report Tempting Faith, the new book from David Kuo, second-in-command of the Office of Faith-Based Intiatives. It is a detailed account of how the office is merely a tool to sucker evangelical Christians out of their votes.

I'm scooping Rob S. on this one. Here's the video:

Couldn't even hear the whistle blow

Hedy West

Sunday morning I began my day 1000 miles from home. It was the last day of our vacation in Florida. Sunday evening we boarded our 6:20 PM flight back to NJ. Sunday night found us safely home and in bed.

By 5 AM Monday morning, I was already up and back in Newark, boarding the 5:20 AM flight to Charlotte, NC. At 9 AM, I was in Greenville, SC. I was 700 miles from home. I made the return trip that same day, arriving home at 9 PM.

By 10 AM Tuesday I'd driven 75 miles to White Plains, NY. The traffic gods smiled on me that evening, and I was home by 7:30 PM.

In three days I travelled 2,550 miles through five different states (not counting the ones I flew over). I went through three international airports. I drove two rental cars, flew two different airlines, and rode on three different planes.

Some observations:

I would fly JetBlue over U.S. Air any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
The Chevy Cobalt was better than I thought, the PT Cruiser less than I hoped.
I should have asked for an economy car. They never have them, so I'd have been upgraded for free.
Orlando is a really nice airport. Charlotte is okay. Newark is getting better.

Yesterday, I went to work. It's 21 miles each way, and I don't have to leave the state.

23 September 2006

Back in beer

Rob S.

Okay, fair point. It has been a long silence. Call it a sabbatical. But a Trappist monk? I think there are some key distinguishing charateristics. I will, however, concede one similarity: beer. Monks make beer. I make beer. That I make beer with my wife, of course, is yet another case where the similarity ends.

Speaking of beer, what have we been brewing, you ask? Well, let me tell ya!

Seaside Park Summer Wheat
It was intended as a German style Hefe-weizen, but alas, the brew store had no German wheat. Instead, we used Belgian Wit yeast. What we ended up with was a light yet fruity beer that went down easy and, for me, embodied summer quite nicely. It was brewed special for our week-long vacation at the shore, and much was consumed there.

DIY ESB
Two three letter acronyms mean one tasty beer. ESB is Extra Special Bitter and boy was it ever special. We enjoy all of our beers. We really like many of them. Then there is the select few that we savor, and when they're gone we remember fondly for years. This one falls into that last category. This was one great beer, and not that it's gone we miss it. (Maybe later I'll upload the label for this.)

Red Ale
Red Ales are, contrary of to the name, more dark than red. The red color can be perceived when you hold it up to the light. This one is more copper than red. Roasted barley is what produces the red hue, though what we ended up with was more copper than red. Maybe next time we'll try roasting ourselves. That doesn't mean it's not good beer. It less hops than some, with a nice dry malt finish.

Marzen
This was actually started before the other beers on this list (in March), but true to style it was not ready until now. It's a classic Oktoberfest lager, fermented and aged at lower temperatures than ales. It's a smooth and malty like it should be. Of course, homebrewing has it's pitfalls. Our old nemesis, poor carbonation, has returned. We'll see if a little more time makes the difference. It has in the past.

So there you go. Finally a blog post, and it's about beer. Now let's see who still comes here....

12 July 2006

The Scotty approach to deficit reduction

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

Star Trek fans accross America had to be pleased yesterday with Bush's homage to Commander Montgomery Scott. The AP article does not quite capture the absurdity the way NPR's David Greene did in this Morning Edition segment.

11 July 2006

Eastern Organic update: time running out.

Lynyrd Skynyrd

I missed this story when it came out in June.

The DEP if piling up the fines against Eastern Organic Resources because of run-off and the stench from their Woodhue Composting Center in Burlington County. The latest fines total $955K with another $81K penalty for generating income while breaking the law. I've been watching this one deteriorate (or perhaps decompose) for months.

Even in the latest article, the concept sounds like a great idea:

Eastern Organic Resources takes in tons of rotting fruits and vegetables, stale bread, grass, leaves and other perishable organic materials and mixes them with dirt to produce a nutrient-rich compost and topsoil. The company then sells the product to golf courses, garden centers, nurseries and builders.

Sometimes a great idea isn't enough. It would seem they just cannot make it work in a way that protects the water in local streams and the nostrils on local residents. It's a shame.

For their part, Eastern Organic Resources continues to assert that they could fix the problem by enclosing the composting center, but the state won't let them implement this solution. I have a feeling it's not that simple. At least I hope it's not.

Meanwhile, everyone is awaiting the outcome of formal proceedings to shut the operation down entirely. Things look pretty grim at this point.

You shone like the sun

Syd Barret died several days ago, quietly ending what had become the very quiet life Pink Floyd's founding guitarist. His death was reported today by the AP. There were few details, the announcement coming from a spokesperson for the band.

07 July 2006

I am Carl Spackler

Carl Spackler (Bill Murray)

Caddyshack

Rodents beware! You will find no pity here! A pox on you all!

Let's just say that squirrels and mice are majorly on my shitlist.

06 July 2006

Vacation's over

President Bartlett

Yeah, still here. Been on vacation for a week - Lake Winnipesaukee in NH. It was a great week. I swam every day, canoed, kayacked, and hiked.

One hike was up 2033' Red Hill. The hike was 5 miles, round trip, with an approx. 1700' ascent. This describes the hike (though on our descent we followed the Teedie instead of Eagle Cliffs trail). The trail is impeccably maintained by the Squam Lakes Association. The other hike was up 1067' Mt Fayal. The trail is part of the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, which also houses members of local species unable to return to the wild because of injury or overexposure to people.

We ate well, enjoying meals from:

The Woodshed in Moultonboro. If you eat beef, eat here. The lobster crepe was also delicious.
The Town Docks in Meredith. Great casual seafood fare. Lobster Rolls and Smutty Nose IPA on tap. Mmmmmm.
Canoe in Center Harbor. Get the lobster mac 'n' cheese, but split it with a friend. They do take out. (Safe those food containers!)
Walter's Basin in Holderness. Lakeview dining on "Golden Pond" (yes, the "Golden Pond"). Tukerman's Pale on tap.

And you have to be touristy now and then. We did our part by taking a cruise on the M/S Mount Washington. It was a beautiful day with great weather out on the lake. The kids had a blast. As a bonus, the bar had Harpoon IPA on tap.

So yeah, I guess you can tell we did our part to support the local breweries. Smuttynose and Tuckerman's topped my list of favorites, and both were available at most supermarkets and convenience stores.

So that covers my abscence last week. Before that, blame these guys. I'm all for providers and factories, but do you really think anyone's going to run this thing on Oracle? But I digress....

12 June 2006

That's MY Assemblymen!

Ann Coulter

His name is Michael Panter, Ann, and I voted for him. It is out of respect for him that I have not told you what you can do with your book or where you can go.

My assemblyman, Michael freakin' Panter, challenged Coulter on her home turf -the FOX "News" Hannity & Colmes show. My favorite line:

Your hyperbole is exciting, but no one wants to burn your book.

Yeah! Damn, I was proud of my district tonight!

01 June 2006

Flight or invisibility

Mystery Men

The Kinks

Yesterday I was listenning again to a classic This American Life episode entitled Superpowers. Act One features John Hodgman asking a bunch of people which superpower they would like to have: flight or invisibility. He finds that this is one of those questions that offers insight into the kind of person you are. He also found it to be a great conversation item for parties.

He set ground rules for each ability, as follows:

Flight: At will you can fly within Earth's atmosphere with a maximum velocity of 1000MPH.
Invisibility: You and your clothes become invisible at will. Items you pick up stay visible.

I'm on the fence, leaning toward invisibility. Which would you choose, and why?

P.S. The episode also includes an interview with Jonathan Morris, editor of the website Gone & Forgotten, an archive of failed comic book characters with Morris' commentary. His articles are funny stuff.

25 May 2006

OUTA SIGHT!

AC/DC

How can listen to AC/DC's Back in Black and not air guitar? I'm just sayin'....

"Forget about the check. We'll get hell to pay!" How can you beat lines like that?

23 May 2006

Banging my head

Yesterday I spent the entire day trying to resolve a configuration issue on a new server. The site I've been working on runs beautifully in my office on the computer I develop on. When I tried to deploy to the production system, it would not work, not work.

Would... not... freakin'... work.

I hate problems like this. You know there is some little configuration change you need to make, you just don't know what it is. Some checkbox somewhere will magically resolve the problem turing a cryptic error into a happily running website. You just need to find the damn thing.

My day goes like this: I spend hours googling error codes and re-reading documentation (yes, I actually RTFM). In general, get nowhere. Every so often, I come across a potential solution. For a few minutes, I think I've got it, I feel like this is definitely it. I click refresh on my browser and mutter obscenities when the error fails to go away. I repeat this process. Over and over.

Of course, one of the potential solutions finally resolved the error. With no warning, clicking refresh suddenly yielded the desired (if not expected) result: a happily running web site. I took no joy in the success, though. I don't feel like I've solved a challenging problem or designed an elegant solution. I just feel like I've been banging my head against a wall.

And it didn't even feel that good when I stopped.

18 May 2006

So-called reality

Andrew

Top Chef credits

Two weeks (or three blog posts) back, I confessed that I'd been sucked into Bravo's Top Chef, a reality show that can be summed up as "The Apprentice" with chefs. Last night was part one of the big finale. It began with the three finalists arriving in Las Vegas for the final showdown. At the end of the hour, only two remained.

The oft-discussed problem with reality shows is that they are not real. Although the contestents and even the judges are real people, it's still a TV show whose goal is to entertain. Even the decision of who get eliminated is as much a question of drama as of fairness. I should, therefore, not be surprised of the three finalists, the one we all despise did not get eliminated. A final battle between two friends has nowhere near the drama that a battle between two bitter foes, especially when one is the clearly established villian.

But I'm still pissed! That chef deserved to go down! None of their dishes were the favorite. The other chef was eliminated mainly because they made only two of the requisite three dishes in the final round. Even though both of those dishes were well liked, the penalty for one missing dish was worse than for several dishes no one liked. How lame is that? The worst thing a chef can do is serve bad food. To make matters worse, once the the chef was all smug, as if they didn't just get a total pass. Man, I want to be there next week to see that chef go down.

Which is, of course, exactly what Bravo wants.

17 May 2006

Why the Impossible Mission Force is bad for America

Erik Lundegaard

I read this commentary on the M:I movies last week and never blogged it. When I saw M:I3 was the top grossing film for the second week in a row, I remembered the commentary. It's good stuff.

There be dragons here

Programmers' caveat

It's been forever since I posted anything. I've mostly been at a loss of what to post, mainly because my job has gotten interesting again, and I've been somewhat engrossed by what I'm working on. It's a new web development project using ASP.NET 2.0, SQL Server 2005, and VS 2005 (those who care will know what that all means). Anyway, I figure if that's what's on my mind, that's what I should blog about. So, a few thoughts and observations on comments....

Comments are bits of text in a program that are ignored by the computer. They are there for the sole benefit of other developers who may need to look at your code (not to mention your own benefit, should you need to remember what the hell it was that you did five months ago). They're akin to footnotes in a book, explaining the stuff that may not be obvious to the reader. Good comments are a hallmark of good programming.

Notice I said "good" comments and not "abundant" or "copious" or "numerous" comments. That is because comments, like food, is best in moderation. Not enough, and your program becomes an incoherent shell. Too many, and it becomes a bloated mess. Good programmers try to write programs that other good programmers can follow. Yet sometimes it is necessary to provide a some additional clues as to why your, say, multiplying that number by 3600 (it's in seconds - you want hours). Okay, programmers our there are right now saying, "You don't need to comment that! Any fool could figure that out." You're right, bad example, but you get my point.

Most of the time, one line is all you need. "Make sure the number is not zero," for example. Every now and then, though, you need to do something in your code that's a lot more complex and potentially confusing. Maybe five lines are needed. Then, there's the odd occaison when even you are disconcerted by the confusing nature of what you have just written. Yet, you cannot find a simpler way of doing it. There are many reasons why this may be the case. Often the vendor tools you're using have boxed you into the corner, and this obtuse mess you've just created is the only way out.

When in such situations, you often find developers leaving the comment:

Warning: There be dragons here.

Sometimes, they'll go so far as to say, "serious dragons." Generally this is to be taken, "Read the following code very carefully, or you might screw things up royally." After this comes a detailed explanation if what's going on. Often, there is also some justification of why it had to be done this way. It's an admission that the code is aweful, as in, "I'm really sorry you have to deal with this crap. Truly I am. But if you were in my shoes, you'd have done the same thing and you know it."

I'm writing all this because I'm coming close to the "dragons here" threshold. I am expanding and enhancing an existing tool, so I can claim that, in large part, it's not my fault. I've also found myself cursing the tool's original authors who, IMHO, did not practice good commenting. Some of the code comes close to what I like to call, "Heart of Darkness" code. This is code that is so bad that, when you finally make you're way through it to the other side, you're left muttering, "the horror.... the horror."

It is not the worst code I've dealt with, though. The worst code was very early on in my carreer. I had to find a bug in an X-windows application call xterm. When I openned the first source file, I found this comment:

WARNING: This code particularly, the tty setup code) is a historical relic and should not be confused with a real toolkit application or a an example of how to do anything. It really needs a rewrite. Badly.

And let me tell you, the author wasn't kidding. But at least they had the honesty of saying so up front. I printed this comment out and hung it on my wall.

03 May 2006

A Guilty Pleasure

Euripides

John Lennon

I admit it. I have been sucked in by the reality show Top Chef on Bravo. For those unfamiliar with the show, it's the same formula as Apprentice, done with chefs instead. Each week there are challanges, each week some gets sent home. Instead of, "You're fired!" they say, "Pack your knives and leave."

I have, in general, shown disdain for reality TV. I never watched Survivor, The Apprentice, or any of the other lesser shows whose names of which I can't even think of. But now I'm hooked. I want to see what ridiculous challange they give them. I want to see who goes down in flames. There are the chefs I want to see succeed and the one I wanted so badly to see get booted (and it was oh so satifying when they finally did).

I suppose the subject matter (food) brought me in initially. I love Food TV shows like Iron Chef, after all, so why not? But Iron Chef this ain't. It's pure "reality" TV. There is the requisite footage of contestents sniping and trash-talking. There is the overdramatic judging segments where the contestents get beat up by their "mentors." There is the annoying comercial break right before the final decision (okay, Iron Chef has that, but it's not the same). In short, it's Apprentice with knives and Chef's Whites.

Still, I keep watching. Call it a guilty pleasure.

02 May 2006

Seven Wonders of My House

Schoolhouse Rock

Rob thought this up. Then I read Jeri's. I figured this is one meme I actually have ideas for. So here goes:

My Children: They are truly wonders. Each day the surprise us, challange us, frustrate us, and delight us, sometimes all at once.
The Family Room Bookshelves: My brother-in-law built them for one of his company's customers, but the interior designer gave him the wrong stain color. The color was just fine for us, so now we have custom-built beautiful recessed bookshelves. He also made us furniture to match!
The Solar Panels: Turning each day's sunlight into the electricity that powers our home. Last July we had a $30 electric bill! I never tire of going downstairs to see how many kilowatt hours of electricity we produced and how many kilograms of carbon dioxide we didn't.
The Kitchen Cabinet Secret Compartment: The search for the missing teddy bear cake pan led to the discovery of this seeminly extra-dimensional space in our kitchen. A muffin pan and strainer were also recovered, as was a glass lid we had never seen before.
Franken-deck: This deck should have been torn down years ago. Each year I pull boards off the privacy screen to replace broken decking. I crawl underneath to shore up the rotting joists. One year we'll give in and buy a new deck. But not this year. (Knock on wood.) (If you can find any on that deck.)
The Shelf of no Return: If you can't figure out where to put something, that's where you should put it. If you can't find something, that's where you should look.
Sharon: Is there nothing she cannot do? I doubt it. Tremble at her awesome power. (Did I mention she's cute?)

I didn't mention the pets, so let me give them honorable mention here. Also the dining room table, which can hold food for eight and support a six-year D&D campaign.

Thanks again to Rob for a great idea.