The Onion: Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early
Posted on February 26th, 2008
Pretty fucking funny:
Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early
Pretty fucking funny:
Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early
Came across this post from Thinking in C++ and Thinking in Java author Bruce Eckel on his experiences with Windows Vista. Of particular interest as a former BeOS-geek was this excerpt:
“What’s amazing is that the only really innovative operating system that has appeared in at least 25 years was crushed, probably with a lot of help from Microsoft while at the same time they were claiming to be innovative. This was BeOS, and life would have been much better right about now if Microsoft had bought them instead…”
Instead Palm bought Be’s technology and the OS faded away (though it’s open source successor, Haiku, is starting to look pretty interesting). For another interesting read on the old BeOS in comparison to Windows and MacOS (of the time) see author Neal Stephenson’s essay “In the Beginning was the Command Line”.
Back to Vista… I too have this sinking feeling that trying to do serious work on this OS is a bad move. In my usual cavalier fashion, I initially leaped whole hog into it and upgraded my entire development system. The target OS for my latest project is Vista, so this made a lot of sense. You have to live in an environment for a while before you really get the feel for it. After 3 months, I’d had enough and had the IS folks set me up with a dual boot XP/Vista system so I could go back and forth. Now I’m wondering whether I will use the Vista install for any of this project’s coding or will only use it to test on…
I fucking love this picture. After battling with this flower a couple of times, I just could not get a shot of it I liked. Finally, got a series from above that really showed it to it’s best. Another plus is that this looks great on the Japanese fine art inkjet papers I’ve been wanting to try out…
Well here it is at last. The start of the giant software development project to end all projects. Ok, maybe not that grande, but definitely one I’ve been fighting for years to get.
This project is essentially two large projects in one (with several smaller sub-projects). Each of these two large projects is actually version 4.0 of the software. I was the project lead on the version 3.0’s back in 2002-2004. So, at a macro level, here’s what’s going to be different this time around (without disclosing too much):
| Then (02-04) | Now (08-09) | |
| Target OS | Windows XP | Windows Vista |
| Target device | 1995 model | 2005 model |
| Compiler | Delphi 7 | Delphi 2007 |
| My Management | US-based | Europe-based |
| Customer | US-run | Europe/US-run |
| Customer team | Experienced | Mostly New |
Now the big task is starting. Here there is always a tendency (that I think is common among many programmers) to just start diving in to the code. That’s the fun stuff. Unfortunately, this is generally frowned on in my industry. This is because the end-product requires regulatory approval, and as part of that approval we have to show a proper design and development process was used in creating the product.
Now a process of this type generally dictates that we start with a project plan and set of requirements and other docs ad nauseam until at last we are officially ready to code. I still desperately want to dive in, but first I must produce a project plan (which, at this stage, is mostly bullcrap) and then we start risk analysis, use cases and detailed specs, detailed designs, etc… And on the side, of course, I start diving in…
Another shot from Umstead. Lichen or fungus, I don’t know. Very nice colors though…
Said all I wanted for my birthday was an interesting flower to take pictures of… my wife delivered. This is a cyclamen after the petals have fallen off. Something very alien and interesting in it that I couldn’t resist after first fixating on the purple flowers. Trying to take one good picture a day (”good” being defined as one I personally like) before I start work…
Ok, scary trend, but I’m recommending another article by a Republican (Peggy Noonan, former Bush speechwriter being the other). Newt Gingrich had an opinion essay published all over the place this morning (the local News and Observer, also WSJ, etc) calling for a re-vote in the Florida and Michigan Democratic primaries. His reasoning is good I think:
“You might think that as a Republican I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I do. All of us do. A tainted or “stolen” Democratic nomination has the potential to delegitimize the election itself and its outcome. And tainted victories produce hobbled administrations. Much as I might have agreed with the outcome of the 2000 general election, the rancor and vitriol it produced created divisions among Americans where none naturally existed before, irreparably damaging the Bush administration.”
He later goes on to say this isn’t likely to help Republicans in the end but it will help ensure the integrity of our democracy. Couldn’t agree more. I’d hate to see the taint of another stolen election ruin many American’s faith in our democracy, as weak as it sometimes is…
You can read more on Newt Gingrich’s website or in the papers all over.
Take a look at Paul Graham’s “Why Arc Isn’t Especially Object-Oriented” for a nice refreshing take on object-oriented programming. From his list of 5 reasons why OOP is popular, here’s number 3:
“Object-oriented programming generates a lot of what looks like work. Back in the days of fanfold, there was a type of programmer who would only put five or ten lines of code on a page, preceded by twenty lines of elaborately formatted comments. Object-oriented programming is like crack for these people: it lets you incorporate all this scaffolding right into your source code.”
Arc is a LISP “dialect” being championed by Mr. Graham and Robert Morris. You can find more about is at the Arc Forum site. Personally, I have little but academic interest in Arc, but find Mr. Graham’s critique of OOP to be biting and on target. I’ve seen the behaviors he’s talking about in my own corporate world more than once.
See Peggy Noonan’s excellent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on whether Clinton can gracefully lose (her answer is probably not).
“Politicians lose battles, it’s part of what they do, win and lose. But she does not know how to lose. Can she lose with grace? But she does grace the way George W. Bush does nuance.”
She also ruminates on which is the better candidate for the Republicans to go against in November:
“The Democrats have it exactly wrong. Hillary is the easier candidate, Mr. Obama the tougher. Hillary brings negative; it’s fair to hit her back with negative. Mr. Obama brings hope, and speaks of a better way. He’s not Bambi, he’s bulletproof.”
Wall Street Journal, Feb. 8th, 2008.
