Thursday, August 31, 2006
Things I Probably Should Like But Don't
Following Pete and Susan's lead, I've compiled my own list of Things I Probably Should Like But Don't:
Big trucks: I drive a Camry. A truck or oversized SUV doesn't appeal to me. I don't need one — and a lot of the people I see driving these beasts (alone!) don't appear to really need 'em either.
Tattoos: This one is on Susan's list as well but it was already on my mental list. If you've got a tattoo (or many), cool for you. I just don't like 'em. Maybe it's a generational thing. I still think of tattoos as a right-of-passage for sailors and bikers.
First-person shooter video games: I don't mind admitting it, these games just don't do anything for me. Not my cup of tea.
Tea: Tea isn't really my cup of tea either.
It's fine on occasion but given the choice, I prefer coffee.
Polenta: I've tried polenta several times and don't like it. It's about as appealing as a block of warm sawdust. I love corn bread, grits and most other corn-based foods but not polenta.
Being waited on: I think this is a class or cultural thing. Going to a fancy restaurant and being waited on makes me uncomfortable. Sure, the staff is paid to do what they do. And I'm sure that many of them enjoy the job. But I spend too much time worrying about being a burden.
Mac OS vs. Windows Arguments: Why can't we just get along? There are good and bad aspects to both. And now that Apple has moved to Intel, you can run both operating systems on the same hardware. Cool. And Linux is fine too if that floats your boat. But don't try to drag me into an argument.
Clearcase: Yes, it is petty for me dislike a source control system that I, thankfully, don't use any more. Theoretically, I should have liked it. As Clearcase proponents are quick to point out, it's got tons of features. But my frustration was with the implementation of those features. Power is worthless if you can't get the basics right. More times than not, Clearcase would go wonky at exactly the wrong moment and waste the rest of my afternoon. Franz Kafka could not have done a better job.
My next list probably should be "Things That I Like But Probably Shouldn't". I'm sure that would be a much longer list.
Big trucks: I drive a Camry. A truck or oversized SUV doesn't appeal to me. I don't need one — and a lot of the people I see driving these beasts (alone!) don't appear to really need 'em either.
Tattoos: This one is on Susan's list as well but it was already on my mental list. If you've got a tattoo (or many), cool for you. I just don't like 'em. Maybe it's a generational thing. I still think of tattoos as a right-of-passage for sailors and bikers.
First-person shooter video games: I don't mind admitting it, these games just don't do anything for me. Not my cup of tea.
Tea: Tea isn't really my cup of tea either.
It's fine on occasion but given the choice, I prefer coffee.Polenta: I've tried polenta several times and don't like it. It's about as appealing as a block of warm sawdust. I love corn bread, grits and most other corn-based foods but not polenta.
Being waited on: I think this is a class or cultural thing. Going to a fancy restaurant and being waited on makes me uncomfortable. Sure, the staff is paid to do what they do. And I'm sure that many of them enjoy the job. But I spend too much time worrying about being a burden.
Mac OS vs. Windows Arguments: Why can't we just get along? There are good and bad aspects to both. And now that Apple has moved to Intel, you can run both operating systems on the same hardware. Cool. And Linux is fine too if that floats your boat. But don't try to drag me into an argument.
Clearcase: Yes, it is petty for me dislike a source control system that I, thankfully, don't use any more. Theoretically, I should have liked it. As Clearcase proponents are quick to point out, it's got tons of features. But my frustration was with the implementation of those features. Power is worthless if you can't get the basics right. More times than not, Clearcase would go wonky at exactly the wrong moment and waste the rest of my afternoon. Franz Kafka could not have done a better job.
My next list probably should be "Things That I Like But Probably Shouldn't". I'm sure that would be a much longer list.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog is fake of course. But it's pretty darned funny. For example, read this recent mea culpa for referring to Eric Schmidt as Squirrel Boy (Schmidt just joined Apple's board). And then there's this post about Nicholas Negroponte's $100 Linux laptop. The prose doesn't really sound Jobsian but that last bit about cranking out J2EE apps for IBM made me snicker. And based on his comments about Sun president Jonathan Schwartz in this post, don't believe those Sun/Apple merger rumors. Even fake Steve Jobs knows better than that.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Lord of the Token Rings
This article on The Daily WTF about a software package that requires token ring networking reminded me of the early days of the Domino web server team. This was about ten years ago. We developed the code on Windows NT and had porting efforts underway for various flavors of Unix (Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, etc.). We had no immediate plans to do OS/2.
IBM management decided that they needed an OS/2 version to ship concurrently with the others platforms. So they funded and assembled an OS/2 porting team and sent them to Cambridge. The team consisted of one developer, a few testers and several managers. (No, I'm not exaggerating). They arrived on a Monday morning with their hardware ready to start the porting work. We set aside some office and lab space for them. As they were getting set up they ran into difficulties. None of their systems could connect to the network. Why? Their computers had Token Ring network cards. The Token Ring sockets in the lab didn't work. Lotus had abandoned Token Ring support years ago when they rewired the building.
When I rejoined IBM back in 2001, quite a few IBM facilities still relied Token Ring but it was slowly being phased out. In fact, if you ordered a "standard" IBM desktop machine it would come with Ethernet and Token Ring network cards.
IBM management decided that they needed an OS/2 version to ship concurrently with the others platforms. So they funded and assembled an OS/2 porting team and sent them to Cambridge. The team consisted of one developer, a few testers and several managers. (No, I'm not exaggerating). They arrived on a Monday morning with their hardware ready to start the porting work. We set aside some office and lab space for them. As they were getting set up they ran into difficulties. None of their systems could connect to the network. Why? Their computers had Token Ring network cards. The Token Ring sockets in the lab didn't work. Lotus had abandoned Token Ring support years ago when they rewired the building.
When I rejoined IBM back in 2001, quite a few IBM facilities still relied Token Ring but it was slowly being phased out. In fact, if you ordered a "standard" IBM desktop machine it would come with Ethernet and Token Ring network cards.
Class of 2010 Mindset List
Each year Beloit College in Wisconsin publishes a list of historical and culture touchstones that have, and have not happened, during the lifetime of entering freshmen. This years's freshmen, the class of 2010, were mostly born in 1988. For them, the Soviet Union has never existed. They have known only two US presidents. There has always been only one Germany. The complete list can be found here. (Via npr.org)
Monday, August 28, 2006
everyday
Photographer Noah Kalina has taken a daily photo of himself for more than six years and recently made a movie of the results. Very nice music score. With a more or less constant facial expression, it's interesting to note the subtle changes in his face over time. (Via kottke.org)
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Seattle Underground
My brother-in-law visited this weekend. A good excuse to spend some time in Seattle. Yesterday we went to the Game On! exhibit at the Pacific Science Center. Very cool. They had loads of coin-op and console games dating back to the 70s. Lots of fun playing some old Atari 2600 games.
Today we did the Seattle Underground tour. Seattle's central business district burned down in 1889. When it was rebuilt the city decided to raise the street level up to deal with flooding issues in the marshy land. As a result, existing first floors of many of the old buildings in Pioneer Square are underground. The history is interesting but the tour is strictly for tourists.
Thinking about Seattle history reminded me of an old television show: Here Come The Brides. The setting was Seattle in the 1870s. The premise was that there was a dearth of women in the area so they imported 100 prospective brides from Massachusetts.
Today we did the Seattle Underground tour. Seattle's central business district burned down in 1889. When it was rebuilt the city decided to raise the street level up to deal with flooding issues in the marshy land. As a result, existing first floors of many of the old buildings in Pioneer Square are underground. The history is interesting but the tour is strictly for tourists.
Thinking about Seattle history reminded me of an old television show: Here Come The Brides. The setting was Seattle in the 1870s. The premise was that there was a dearth of women in the area so they imported 100 prospective brides from Massachusetts.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Decaf == Orange
Ever wonder why coffee pots that contain decaffeinated coffee have an orange handle? To tell them apart from regular coffee for sure but why orange? I'm not sure why I made this connection but a flashback to a childhood memory made it clear. When I was a kid my Dad's doctor told him to cut down on caffeine. Back then if you wanted to avoid caffeine, you drank Sanka. And Sanka came in orange packets. And Sanka was the only decaf option for quite a while. So a strong association between orange and decaf existed. So making the handle on a decaf coffee pot orange makes sense. Wikipedia backs me up on this. So it must be true, right?
Monday, August 21, 2006
Firefox
According to the Firefox brand name FAQ, the browser was named after a red panda. The name was intentionally similar to the previous choice, Firebird which was chosen after trademark issues surfaced with the original name, Phoenix. Naming is hard.
When I first heard the name, I didn't think red panda. I immediately thought of the cold-war era film starring Clint Eastwood. In the film, Firefox is a highly advanced Soviet fighter aircraft that Clint Eastwood's character is intent on stealing to fly back to the United States for analysis. A major plot point about Firefox is that the weapons console is controlled by the pilot's thoughts. The catch is that any command to fire weapons had to be thought in Russian.
Firefox was also Atari's first and only laserdisc coin-op arcade game.
When I first heard the name, I didn't think red panda. I immediately thought of the cold-war era film starring Clint Eastwood. In the film, Firefox is a highly advanced Soviet fighter aircraft that Clint Eastwood's character is intent on stealing to fly back to the United States for analysis. A major plot point about Firefox is that the weapons console is controlled by the pilot's thoughts. The catch is that any command to fire weapons had to be thought in Russian.
Firefox was also Atari's first and only laserdisc coin-op arcade game.
Sunday, August 20, 2006
We're Back
We were on vacation last week on the Olympic Peninsula. It was our first time out there. We had perfect sunny weather the entire week. We stayed in a cabin on Lake Crescent. It's a beautiful area. The lake is surrounded by mountains. The water gets very deep (over 600 feet) and is incredibly clear. We spent a lot of time on the lake and also took day trips out to the rain forest and beaches along the Pacific Coast.
While we were driving through the area, my wife commented that we must be in telephone pole country. When she was little she wondered where they found trees that were tall and straight enough to produce telephone poles. The trees in the Olympic Peninsula certainly fit the bill and we saw plenty of logging trucks on the highways.
We spent the entire week "off the grid". No internet access, no television, no newspapers and spotty cellphone coverage. We listening to CBC Radio a couple of times but only heard the local news. We were disconnected from the world. And it felt pretty good. Of course, now that we're back, we have a huge pile of email and postal mail to dig through.
While we were driving through the area, my wife commented that we must be in telephone pole country. When she was little she wondered where they found trees that were tall and straight enough to produce telephone poles. The trees in the Olympic Peninsula certainly fit the bill and we saw plenty of logging trucks on the highways.
We spent the entire week "off the grid". No internet access, no television, no newspapers and spotty cellphone coverage. We listening to CBC Radio a couple of times but only heard the local news. We were disconnected from the world. And it felt pretty good. Of course, now that we're back, we have a huge pile of email and postal mail to dig through.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Goggles flight simulator
Googles flight simulator is a Flash application that integrates images from Google Maps to allow you to fly a small plane. Use the arrow keys to bank, climb or dive. Get too close to the ground and you'll crash. The space bar lets you shoot at the scenery passing below. This feature reminds me of a laserdisc-based arcade game from the 80s where you flew a plane over Southern California suburbia and fired at ground targets superimposed on the real images. When a shopping mall appeared below, it was hard to resist taking a shot or two.
Friday, August 11, 2006
Lang.NET Symposium 2006
The Lang .NET Symposium was held on the Microsoft campus last week. I wish I had had the time to attend. The agenda sounded interesting. I guess I'll have to settle for reviews from attendees. There are also some interesting interviews with a few of the presenters on Port 25 including this interview with Miguel de Icaza about Mono.
Monrail running again
The Seattle Center Monorail reopened today. It had been closed since last November when two trains sideswiped each other. My older son is ecstatic. When we first came to Seattle last summer for a visit, we stayed downtown and rode the monorail every day from our hotel to Seattle Center. When we lived in Boston my son loved taking the Red Line into Boston. The Monorail is the closest thing Seattle has to that experience.
Update: The Monorail is out of service again. Officials now say another $4.5 million is needed to keep the one-mile line in necessary shape.
Update: The Monorail is out of service again. Officials now say another $4.5 million is needed to keep the one-mile line in necessary shape.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
How common is your last name in America?
The website for the film The Sweetest Sound has a popularity search based on the 50,000 most popular surnames culled from the Social Security Index. Congdon is not too common, it's listed at 6845. Given the great diversity of surnames, it's not hard to think of ones that aren't listed. The least common surname I was able to find in the list was Schneier at 49752
Update: As Joe Ganley points out in comments, it's not clear whether the popularity search has 50,000 or 55,000 entries. It says 55,000 after you do an unsuccessful search.
Update: As Joe Ganley points out in comments, it's not clear whether the popularity search has 50,000 or 55,000 entries. It says 55,000 after you do an unsuccessful search.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Solidus
I was skimming through the JSON RFC and found references to the solidus and reverse solidus characters (aka slash and backslash). Outside of formal specs does anyone actually use these names? I mean, pronouncing double-you double-you double-you is bad enough, does anyone say solidus rather than slash when reading off a URL?
Update: I've updated the text to make it clearer that I was asking about common usage. I realize that it makes sense for a formal spec to use "solidus". I was just curious whether anyone actually says solidus rather than slash.
Update: I've updated the text to make it clearer that I was asking about common usage. I realize that it makes sense for a formal spec to use "solidus". I was just curious whether anyone actually says solidus rather than slash.
Monday, August 07, 2006
The Biology of B-Movie Monsters
The Biology of B-Movie Monsters discusses the implications of one of the most popular themes in monster movies: changes in size (e.g. insects grown huge, people made tiny, etc.) It starts out discussing one of my favorite B-Movies The Incredible Shrinking Man. How would a man who is only one inch tall fair against a large house spider? I love stuff like this.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Has Your Browser Been to Cameroon?
According to CircleID, the nation of Cameroon, which controls the .cm top level domain, has typo-squatted all of the .com domain space. They have placed a wildcard DNS record to redirect all traffic to an ad-based search page. In other words, if you intended to type say, bobcongdon.com and enter bobcongdon.cm instead, rather than getting an error, your browser is directed to an ad page. (Via Slashdot)
Friday, August 04, 2006
Was It Done With a Lens, or a Brush?
I hadn't heard of high dynamic range imaging before reading this New York Times article. The photos are pretty amazing. I'd love to try this out. I don't own a copy of Photoshop CS2 but maybe I'll give the two programs mentioned in the article a try (Photomatix and FDRTools).
Merkur XR4Ti
I saw a black Merkur XR4Ti on my drive to work this morning. Nice car. I remember the first time I saw one I misread the stylized logo and thought that it was the Merkur Xrati (Zee-Rat-Tee). I knew several people who owned them back in late 80s. The Merkur never really caught on in the US. The main problem was that Ford sold them as part of the Lincoln-Mercury product line. It was the wrong audience for a car like this.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Bear Arms
Seen while driving in Kent, WA: a gun shop called Bear Arms. Looking at the logo, I imagine it's related to that variation of the Second Amendment on The Right To Arm Bears.
10 IT brand names that just won't die
Paul McNamara's article 10 IT brand names that just won't die is journalistic fluff. As Paul says: "Sometimes we start with a headline ... and then write the story to fit the preconceived notion."
But just because it's fluff doesn't mean it won't generate some controversy. Item #8 may spawn another round of "Notes isn't dead" blog postings. (Hey, I didn't write the article, blame Paul!). And, for the record, I still prefer ThinkPads over other PC laptops regardless of whether they carry the IBM or Lenovo brand name.
But just because it's fluff doesn't mean it won't generate some controversy. Item #8 may spawn another round of "Notes isn't dead" blog postings. (Hey, I didn't write the article, blame Paul!). And, for the record, I still prefer ThinkPads over other PC laptops regardless of whether they carry the IBM or Lenovo brand name.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Hot Enough For You?
I noticed a few blog posts about how hot it is on the East Coast today. Having lived through quite a few hot summers in Boston, I can empathize.
Not to gloat or anything but the weather here is quite pleasant today:
When we tell people that we moved to Seattle, they usually comment about the rain. Few people seem to know that the summers here are so nice. I'll gladly take three months of this kind of weather in the summer in exchange for a few more rainy days the rest of the year.
Not to gloat or anything but the weather here is quite pleasant today:
When we tell people that we moved to Seattle, they usually comment about the rain. Few people seem to know that the summers here are so nice. I'll gladly take three months of this kind of weather in the summer in exchange for a few more rainy days the rest of the year.
Net Neutrality
Three Internet "celebrities" sing for net neutrality. I remember the guy who dresses like Peter Pan and Tron Guy but who is Leslie Hall? (Via waxy.org)
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Mike Kudla is back
Mike Kudla had a blog and then he didn't. His blog on BlogSpot got hijacked so he's got a new one with the tag line I just don't get it.
Mike recently visited IBM Westford and had a somewhat surreal experience. I know what that's like. I left Iris in 2000 and returned in 2001 shortly after it had been absorbed into IBM. The physical building hadn't changed much, many of the same people worked there, but the atmosphere was markedly different. Even though some of the Iris totems were around (the Elvis shrine, the neon Iris sign, the free snack machines, etc.) the Iris culture was quickly disappearing. It wasn't all negative, just different. Merging into IBM meant giving up some things while gaining others. Not everyone is going to be happy with change, regardless of whether it's for the better or not. Iris was independent for more than six years after the IBM acquisition. The Iris team was incredibly productive but was also very provincial. Independence was part of the culture from the beginning. Even though Notes was a Lotus-branded product, Iris had always been a separate and independent entity. Lotus didn't even own Iris until the year before the IBM acquisition.
The "hands off" approach that IBM used when it acquired Lotus/Iris is no longer done. IBM Senior VP Steve Mills was quoted in an eWeek article back in 2003: "We now assimilate with speed. The Lotus subsidiary lived on for a period of time but ceased to make sense after a while. That was fine in '95, but it doesn't make sense going forward." When Rational was acquired in 2003 it was assimilated in less than a year.
Mike recently visited IBM Westford and had a somewhat surreal experience. I know what that's like. I left Iris in 2000 and returned in 2001 shortly after it had been absorbed into IBM. The physical building hadn't changed much, many of the same people worked there, but the atmosphere was markedly different. Even though some of the Iris totems were around (the Elvis shrine, the neon Iris sign, the free snack machines, etc.) the Iris culture was quickly disappearing. It wasn't all negative, just different. Merging into IBM meant giving up some things while gaining others. Not everyone is going to be happy with change, regardless of whether it's for the better or not. Iris was independent for more than six years after the IBM acquisition. The Iris team was incredibly productive but was also very provincial. Independence was part of the culture from the beginning. Even though Notes was a Lotus-branded product, Iris had always been a separate and independent entity. Lotus didn't even own Iris until the year before the IBM acquisition.
The "hands off" approach that IBM used when it acquired Lotus/Iris is no longer done. IBM Senior VP Steve Mills was quoted in an eWeek article back in 2003: "We now assimilate with speed. The Lotus subsidiary lived on for a period of time but ceased to make sense after a while. That was fine in '95, but it doesn't make sense going forward." When Rational was acquired in 2003 it was assimilated in less than a year.
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