Inside the black box...
Got an invite to a Google tech talk via the Java Users Group, and of course I was curious to see the inside of a Google office, so I went. Pretty swank, even though they’re just renting from ASU for now. Wii and XBox 360 on an HDTV (I didn’t play). Cafeteria area with containers labelled things like “vegetarian” and “low-cholesterol” (and no cash register).
For the event itself - catered hors d’oeuvres and beer, door prizes for half the people in the room, swag bags for everyone. (Diana and Lenny love their new flashing-LED Google pins.)
From Google’s perspective, it’s part of a recruitment effort, and I’m betting they’re happy with their results - a turnout of over 100 people. Some of these people had rather expensive degrees, too. I wound up talking shop with a guy from Lowell Observatory (astrophysics PhD). (I mentioned the tour we took earlier this year, and the guide who told us that Lowell has a program for deflecting Earth-bound asteroids (they don’t, he confirmed :) .)
Josh Bloch was the speaker, and he had some very scary Java pitfalls to share with us. At his recommendation, I made myself a note to research FindBugs (for the second time this year; I really need to get around to that).
Anyway, a fun evening all around. They’ll be getting Vint Cerf in January. I’ll definitely be there, for networking if not for the speaker.
Read more...I forgot to update a production crontab after last night’s installation, and the old version (which used a different release mechanism) ran instead of the current one - a potentially hazardous situation that fortunately worked out OK anyway. I got a slap on the wrist from my boss, though. I need to ensure the next release goes smoother, which means having a checklist of pitfalls, even the ones I’ve never encountered before.
I sought advice from a co-worker, which essentially amounted to “live and learn”. I sought advice from Code Complete, which offered no advice on releasing your highly-polished code. I need to check Release It! tonight, though I’m not sure how helpful that will be with a small-scale app like this.
It’s very frustrating. This stuff really needs to be automated, so I can just code.
Read more...I know of at least 3 people in the last 3 months (including my father and my father-in-law) who have gotten viruses, and their solution was to go purchase a new computer.
Anti-virus software needs to be easier to use, and it needs to be more effective. Failing that, it needs to be easier to wipe a hard drive and reinstall Windows. And people need to be educated on all of the above. Why are there still no computer Q&A-type shows on the major TV networks? I would think they’d get substantial ratings with a minimal budget.
Read more...Just hacked my way through a gnarled jungle of shell script, SQL, and 4GL in a single day. (I’d never have been able to keep it all in my head otherwise.) Feeling pretty accomplished.
Of course, a gnarled jungle of Java awaits me for the rest of the week as I try to design something that will play nice with my host app…
Read more...Remember those kamikaze guys with the bombs in Serious Sam? Well, that’s what my Halo technique has been reduced to.
EEEEEYYYYAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHThoom!
I rush the crowd of Brutes (I counted at least a dozen) and their #$@!@##$@ tank, toss my two grenades (bad guys fly every which way), and then kill as many as I can with my assault rifle before I’m shot from 3 sides at once. (It takes the AI a moment to realize that I actually am being that stupid.) Respawn at Diana’s sniper nest (with 2 new grenades), repeat.
Read more...I’ve allowed myself to be sloppy, just because my predecessor was sloppy. It’s starting to bite me in the ass.
No more. This software will be rewritten and refactored until I can sleep soundly at night. I don’t care whose toes get stepped on.
Read more...wxRuby: Painting a device context...
We pass Wx::Window#paint a block which will be called with a device context to paint on. Then we hook this into Wx::Window#evt_paint so it’s called whenever a repaint is needed.
This is a bit simpler than Ruby-Gnome2 so far…
Read more...Lazy Google...
Made a slight improvement to the standard Google “Google Bookmark” bookmarklet (boy, there’s a mouthful)… It quotes the current selection and uses it as a description, a la Lazy Sheep for del.icio.us.
Thanks to John Resig and Niall Kennedy.
Read more...Diana and I spent a good part of last night playing Halo 3 on Legendary with the Thunderstorm skull enabled… A narrow passageway with 10+ heavily-armed Brutes is not a funny thing. The sound of Spiker rounds clanging off the walls over and over is now permanently etched in my brain.
Read more...I feel much better now.
I was reading an op-ed about the coming oil crisis when I had a thought. A thought much broader than the energy crisis or the environmental crisis or the democratic process crisis or any of the other crises we face today. And it’s a thought that’s been had before, so I’ll just borrow the words it was phrased in before:
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Of course we’re facing an oil crisis and an environmental crisis. We haven’t invented alternatives to fossil fuels, because it’s never been necessary before. Now it is, so we will. Of course we’re concerned about the lack of voter-verifiable paper trails. But now that we’ve realized they’re (still) necessary, we’ll (re-)invent them.
Insert your favorite emergency here, and then relax. As soon as people start dying from it, the solution is coming.
Read more...