Really Good Thought Experiment

I've been reading the dilbert blog by the author of dilbert. He's really quite a good writer. He published a book in 2001 called God's Debris and now he's offered it online for free. I've read it and liked it a lot. I'd say if you've got a little bit of time, give it a read. ;-)

My only complaint? Now I want to read the the sequel. ;-P

hee hee...

Funny comic. ;-) I can relate.

Obscure IE "features"

Ever get to the point with a problem where you're like "I give up" but then go back and google it one more time? Well, it worked for me today and I am very happy. ;-)

Apparently IE will only send "button info" along with a form (when you click enter in a text field) if there is more than one text field. How did I figure this out? MS spec? No. Message board? No. Someone's blog entery? Yes. ;-)

God, I love the net.

Validate every page

A co-worker showed me a plugin for FireFox that validates as you go. I think that this is great because it helped me quickly find bad html and let's me fix it as I go. I very much perfer trying to keep on a constant quality rather than go through a big "fix cycle". ;-)

My Porsche pulls to the right...

One thing that has bothered me lately is the mislabeling of concepts. Let me explain with an example:

I've got a Porsche. It's a good little car, but not what I would really expect with the name "Porsche". I tell my friends that I drive a Porsche and they are all impressed. They think that I am hot shit and I agree with them: Yes, I am hot shit. If something goes wrong, I read about how to fix my Porsche and what helpful suggestions other Porsche owners have. However, these suggestions have not been very helpful: I usually end up finding my own solution for the problem. Did I mention that it doesn't perform as well as the Porsche dealer said it would? I'm not exactly happy and am thinking about switching back to my old Ferrari. And the weirdest thing about my Porsche? It says "Ford Focus" at the back. Weird.

...

Yes, that was a long winded example. My point is no matter what you have, it's in your best interest to describe it as best you can. If you're calling it something that it isn't, any help you seek won't be as relevant as if you had just described what you actually have. If everyone is on the same page with an accurate view of the current state of affairs, you're more likely to make productive progress.

V for Vendetta

Remember, remember the fifth of November

The gunpowder treason and plot.

I see no reason why gunpowder treason

Should ever be forgot.

Laura and I watched V for Vendetta this week. It wasn't what I was expecting at all. It was excellent though, I really enjoyed it. It's weird because you are rooting for the terrorist... I don't want to say too much about the movie. I'd rather people saw it without any preconceived ideas.

I had no idea about the 1605 gunpower plot or anything about Guy Fawkes. Really interesting. Sort of makes me wonder just how much history we're forgetting about and how much we're dooming ourselves to repeat.

Censorship

Do I censor this blog? Yes. I'll delete any comment that I think is spam. I'll even get rid of any post that I really don't feel is appropriate, but I've only had to do that once or twice.

Just so we're all on the same page. ;-)

Belly who?

Supposedly this question has caused churches to break up and other messed up things.

Going on the assumption that God created Adam and Eve as a template for all people that followed; did Adam or Eve have a belly button? If he didn't (since he was made out of dust) does that mean that we're not really the same as Adam? Of if he did, where did he get it from?

But I think that this question leads to a bigger issue: if God doesn't approve of popsicles without sticks, then why would He tolerate freeze pops to exist?

Discuss.

Java Quiz

Bonus points to anyone who knows what the results of this will be without running it or looking at the documentation. ;-)

public void testTrue() {
String str = "true";
boolean expected = true;

assertEquals("not what you expected?", expected, Boolean
.getBoolean(str));
}

public void testFalse() {
String str = "false";
boolean expected = false;

assertEquals("not what you expected?", expected, Boolean
.getBoolean(str));
}

For anyone interested, here's the documentation.

Shirt and Tie

I wore a shirt and tie, dress pants and nice shoes into work today. My reason? To mess with people's heads for fun. ;-) All morning has been "where's the interview?" When I tell people that there is no interview and I just did it randomly just for fun, no one believes me. They go "sure you are... *wink*"

Ya, I find it funny. Yes, today is a good day: the elevator was empty going into work today... god, I love messing with people's heads sometimes. And no, I am not going to explain that last comment. :-D

525 600 minutes...

365 days is 525 600 minutes. But google says 1 year is 525 948.766 minutes. Humm... who's right? Probably google. ;-)

Pigs Pens and Ball Bearings

A math teacher friend gave me a puzzle the other day. I'll post her's and one that I heard too. In a couple of days I'll post the answers if no one has gotten it.

First Problem:
You have 27 pigs that you must place in 4 pens. Each pen must contain an odd number of pigs (zero is not an odd number). You can't have 1/2 pigs or anything like that.

Second Problem:
You have 7 ball bearings and an equal arm balance. One ball is slightly heavier than the others. What is the fewest number of weighings that you will need to find the heavy ball?

Java Puzzlers

If you're doing something in Java, you might be interested to check out Joshua Bloch's new book Java Puzzlers. I checked out the interview and free chapter and it was an interesting. A lot of the problems seem a bit obscure, but that's why they made a book! ;-)

It's a good place to see how not to do things. Some of the problems would have been solved by either following the "things to do" outlined in Effective Java or not doing weird byte operations.

It brings up a point in my mind how KISS is such a good design concept and how "being clever" causes more problems than it solves most of the time. When someone describes their architecture as being "neat" and how they'll have to explain it sometime sets a red flag in my head: if you have to set aside time to explain the architecture then it's probably more complex than you need it.

Using that edumacation

One of the things that has struck me lately is just how much I use what I learned at school every day, just about. My degree just didn't "teach me how to learn" crap that you tell the arts students, but so much more. I find that I am able to use material from 1st year all the way to 4th. It's awesome. Some people are like "wow, that's a great idea! I won't have thought of that." to which I usually reply something like "Ya, I wish I had been the guy to think of it too... that's what they taught us in school".

I'm not trying to promote UofO or anything. I'm just so happy that whoever worked on planning the courses we took (which I grumbled about at the time with the best of them) did a good job. Yes, there were gaps which I believe they have been working on to fix since we left, but I'm still happy with the result.

What percentage of people actually apply and use what they were taught in school? Probably pretty low for most programs. We're the lucky ones.

For the children of the 80's

This one is for you. ;-)

Gross

Do you have those automatic doors on the bathroom at your work? I do. I guess it makes them wheelchair accessable and all that. Some people perfer to hit the button with their hip so they don't actually have to touch the door.

Okay, I'm cool with that. You don't want to touch the "dirty" door handle. I'm cool with that, I can relate.

What I don't get is that a lot of time the people who use the button are the same who don't wash their hands. YUCK! So, you're a dirty SOB and don't want to get germs from other dirty SOB's? Gross. I really wish that there was some kind of electric shock for not washing your hands when leaving the bathroom...

</rant>