Christopher Mahan's blog

Blog is moving!

2009-12-11T00:32:00.001-08:00

This blog is going to the cellar. New blog at http://blog.christophermahan.com/

Uh, actually, no. Blog is going away. Continue at http://christophermahan.com/

Pyrant

2009-08-14T04:08:00.000-07:00

Pyrant (http://code.google.com/p/pyrant/) is a fork of pytyrant that supports the TokyoCabinet table data store. Still in beta, but more actively developed than pytyrant.

recession proof graduate

2009-08-14T04:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.slideshare.net/ramit/recessionproof-graduate-1722975

Interesting. Especially since it comes from a 22 year old.

Socal-piggies

2009-08-13T23:48:00.000-07:00

Great get-together at the socal-piggies meeting today!

Cool presentation on some tools Dan Stromberg put together (pnetcat, looper), and a nice demo of TokyoCabinet+TokyoTyrant+pytyrant+restish by Grig Gheorghiu, following a retailed presentation, also by Grig, and discussion about REST for those in the meeting who had not been exposed to it.

There was a discussion on whether is was ever appropriate to expose (db) transactions as REST URI. Grig Spoke highly of RESTFul Web Services by Leonard Richardson and Sam Ruby.

I passed around some back issues of Python Magazine encouraging people to take the ones they would find interesting, and about half were taken. I'll bring them to the next meeting and hopefully they will all be gone!

I also promised Grig that I would do a socal-piggies presentation on the backend for grabatask.com that I am building. It involves an API in FAPWS with pytyrant that stores and retrieved data from TokyoCabinet throught TokyoTyrant.

I personally liked the discussion on how to use TokyoCabinet tables from within python. Great stuff!

Slide on Netflix Culture

2009-08-06T05:22:00.000-07:00

Outstanding.

pytyrant

2009-08-01T00:55:00.000-07:00

>>> import pytyrant
>>> t = pytyrant.PyTyrant.open('127.0.0.1', 1978)
>>> t['__test_key__'] = 'foo'
>>> t.concat('__test_key__', 'bar')
>>> print t['__test_key__']
foobar
>>> del t['__test_key__']

obvious no?

from http://code.google.com/p/pytyrant/

Sharin's poem

2009-07-27T02:33:00.000-07:00

I wrote a poem for Sharin Bhatti. She really liked it.

She noted that she'd never come across that meter. She called it Chris Meter. 8-6, repeat.

Recent tweet by a coder I know (VS2008)

2009-07-03T06:23:00.000-07:00

OMFG! ARGH! I QUIT! I CANT DO THIS ANYMORE! I AM RESKILLING TO FLIP BURGERS! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! OMFGWTF-BARB-E-EFFING-QUEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

Discouraged by version control

2009-07-03T03:37:00.001-07:00

So I watch the Git vs Mercurial vs bazaar vs SVN low-intensity conflict simmer on the intarweb and I wonder... Is is me or has all that stuff suddenly become Too Hard to use? Where has it all deviated from the Unix philosophy and gone down the Enterprise Way?

I think I'm just going to go back to the old way: compressed archives of (few) directories.

For those who ask, indignantly, and not on this blog because comment count is almost negative, about the multi-member team working on massive software, I reply: The Rule Of Modularity (http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html#id2877537), which I transcribe here purely for effect.

Rule of Modularity: Write simple parts connected by clean interfaces.
As Brian Kernighan once observed, “Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming” [Kernighan-Plauger]. Debugging dominates development time, and getting a working system out the door is usually less a result of brilliant design than it is of managing not to trip over your own feet too many times.
Assemblers, compilers, flowcharting, procedural programming, structured programming, “artificial intelligence”, fourth-generation languages, object orientation, and software-development methodologies without number have been touted and sold as a cure for this problem. All have failed as cures, if only because they ‘succeeded’ by escalating the normal level of program complexity to the point where (once again) human brains could barely cope. As Fred Brooks famously observed [Brooks], there is no silver bullet.
The only way to write complex software that won't fall on its face is to hold its global complexity down — to build it out of simple parts connected by well-defined interfaces, so that most problems are local and you can have some hope of upgrading a part without breaking the whole.

On writing software.

2009-07-03T03:06:00.000-07:00

Excellent rant by Bruce Eckel on what it's like to write software. Along a similar vein, a post by Mark Ramm that generated lively and interesting comments!

Then more interesting stuff here from Jakob Kaplan-Moss with lively discussion, including Ian Bicking.

On thinking in

2009-07-03T01:48:00.000-07:00

Part of the ongoing thinking forming in my mind about how I create software.

I left a comment there:
http://myownhat.blogspot.com/2009/07/help-how-do-you-do-test-driven-design.html

See also: http://chrismahan.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html

I've just made another interesting deviation while rereading the above. The rulers in Dune relied on the mentats to best determinate long-term strategy, as well as implementation details. The elder Herbert continues to amaze me.

Python in the Browser?

2009-07-03T01:35:00.000-07:00

I so can't wait for this to work!

By work, I mean usable by mortals like me.

Thoughts on Iran, June 20 2009 10:57PM

2009-06-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

I think there will be a massacre today in the streets of Tehran.

I am deeply proud of the courage and dedication shown by the protesters. I feel honored to be able to witness their courage and sacrifice.

I think the regime is not using the army and the revolutionary guards because they would turn to the opposition. If there is widespread death today, the army and revolutionary guards will swing into action. No doubt of that. I am sure they are getting everything ready in the barracks for a long fight.

Iran power struggle switching sides?

2009-06-16T17:52:00.000-07:00

5:52 PM Pacific time.

Personal opinion from web-wide look:

The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be replaced, as well as Ahmadinejad.

The police and army will side with peaceful demonstrators and Basiji will be blamed for worst of violence, shootings.

Iran will remain Islamic country, but with a much better understanding of democracy.

2009-06-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

I fear the government of Iran is planning a massive crackdown on its own citizens, which will result in much bloodshed.

Iran

2009-06-16T11:17:00.001-07:00

I'm following the news out of Iran on twitter on #iranelection.

The rest of the news media are playing catchup.

Lessons in Leadership from the USS Nimitz

2009-06-11T05:43:00.000-07:00

http://blogs.openforum.com/2009/06/10/top-ten-lessons-from-the-us-navy-what-you-can-learn-on-an-aircraft-carrier-at-sea/

Impressive.

No wonder we're safe.

Wale and Lady GaGa

2009-06-03T15:18:00.000-07:00

It's Wah-lay.

Funny vid on youtube about Vendor Client negotiations

2009-05-27T17:04:00.000-07:00

And it's funny too!

More writing

2009-05-27T16:56:00.001-07:00

I promised Hitomi I'd start writing again. So I'm gonna have to.

/me loves Lady Gaga

2009-05-24T23:19:00.000-07:00

Yeah, she's all that.

extremely strange problem

2009-05-22T00:19:00.001-07:00

I have the weirdest computer problem.

I bought a Acer Aspire One D-150 (AOD150) in December 2008. So far I absolutely love it. It's a very capable machine.

When I play ogg vorbis files with high encoding, I get skipping in the files. This occurs both with the latest version of VLC, and foobar2000, my music player of choice.

What's high encoding you ask? 340 kbps to 504 kbps.

I had these files on other computers and they all played fine, without any skipping, so that rules out bad ripping.

I was resigning myself when I noted that:

C:\moozak\Prince And The Revolution\Prince - Purple Rain - 05 - Darling Nikki.ogg

skips, whereas

C:\moozak\Prince And The Revolution\05-Darling Nikki.ogg

plays just fine. These are copies of the same file! Both are exactly: 13,996,959 bytes. I can run an md5 on these, but I am fairly sure that they are the exat same file, because they were ripped from the same CD on the same computer using the same tool: FreeRip.

Arrgghhh! I just realized that the files that skip were encoded before 2008. The ones that don't were encoded in 2008.

Weird huh?

Maybe the 2008 and after vorbis encoding codecs are more efficient for my Intel Atom processor?

Comments, questions?

The Zinger

2009-05-21T15:02:00.000-07:00

Let's mark the date. Today, my friend "AB" came up with a good zinger!

Lists on Kissws.com

2009-05-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

There are now lists on kissws.com. These don't yet behave as python lists, but they are quite useful for to-do lists.

Also, I'm hosted with rapidvps. I'll be looking to add one or two VPS providers. Am looking at fsckvps.com, and need another.

My requirements 64MB-128MB, (only using 33MB right now) with debian 5 and about 100 gb of monthly transfer. I also have minimal storage requirements. I don't need more than 1GB of storage.

But I do need reliability.

Update:
I went with fsckvps.com. Any other suggestions?

I also registered smallbusinesswebmanager.com. Any idea what I'm gonna do with it?

Update 2: I also use webfaction.com

trouble in google-land?

2009-05-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

The Gods of Email (namely gmail) are AWOL today.

Ok, it seems that firefox 3 is having issues on my computer... Argh!!! but chrome worked.

Update: Reinstalling firefox 3.0.10 on top of firefox 3.0.10 fixed the issue.

Monkchips on web app PR and suckiness.

2009-05-13T11:06:00.000-07:00

monkchips in general if i hear about a new web app from a press release its going to suck. good web apps don't need PR. the net gets there first.

I like that.

RAPIDVPS Slow

2009-05-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

rapidvps is being slow right now. Getting intermittent page timeout errors. Not good. This was May 12 2009.

Update: received an email update om May 13, 2009 that states:

We are opening a maintenance window on May 17 2009 from 9pm - May 18 2am EST. During this time your service will be intermittent while we replace a Sup720 3bxl card in a core router. We will have operations staff onhand in the data center and will work intelligently to minimize downtime.

Could these be related?

kissws.com update

2009-05-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

I changed the names of the log functions. Aldrin, this is for you.

better queue management

2009-05-08T16:58:00.000-07:00

Added the option to delete a queue. The queue must be empty. I also added the option for force-delete a queue.

At http://kissws.com/

a little web service

2009-05-07T18:26:00.000-07:00

I started a little web service on a virtual machine hosted at rapidvps.com

The service is available at kissws.com.

Why kissws? stands for KISS and ws for web service.

It's all in xmlrpc, because I like it.

On amnesty for CIA torturers

2009-04-19T22:08:00.000-07:00

I left this comment in my petition at http://www.democrats.com/no-amnesty-for-torturers:

Obama was stunned that Iran sentenced an American journalist to 8 years in prison for allegedly spying. The trial was closed door, and seems an affront to our sense of justice.

Likewise the CIA interrogators' actions are an affront to our sense of justice, and those who did the torturing should have quit their jobs rather than take part in this heinous crime.

That they did not quit their jobs demonstrates their moral bankruptcy, lack of personal integrity, and total disregard for human dignity and international law.

The worst thing, however, is that the Obama administration is actually helping protect these people. Unbelievable. The next Senate will be 61% Republican if he does not revert this decision.

Organic Farming in Nairobi Slum

2009-04-05T22:44:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting look at organic farming in 1 million people slum Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya.

A little Python

2009-04-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

I found a little python chat server at http://www.strout.net/python/tidbits.html. I tried it in python 2.6 and I got a few errors. So I fixed it. But then I saw no license on the code or the page so I just emailed the new file to the author and we'll see what happens.

Update: the author said all that python code is public domain and I may do with it as I wish! Yay!

BarackObama at twitter.com: FAIL

2009-03-18T07:42:00.000-07:00

What happened with Barack's twitter account?

Can't be bothered to let us little people know what's going on?

Oh well, I'm starting to feel like a trampoline. Now that he's in the leather chair, he doesn't feel he needs us anymore.

On Net Neutrality.

2009-03-18T06:15:00.000-07:00

I watched this video, from gammill (on twitter), and while it is sensationalized, it explains fairly well what net neutrality is about and what the stakes are.

What the video says

Basically it says that if net neutrality is defeated, the telecommunication companies will eliminate nearly all non-corporation-produced content from the internet. What is this content? Web sites, blogs, videos, podcasts, social networks. Essentially, they want the internet to become their exclusive content-delivery network.

Independent content provider: DIE!

My take on the message behind the message? As long as people can find free stuff on the web, people won't want to pay for content from the big media providers. So their idea is to eliminate all content that is not theirs by requiring all web sites to pay large fees to gain access to dedicated bandwidth.

For example: you have a simple web site. Your bandwidth upload speed need is, on average, 50 Kb/s (kilobits per second). That's not a lot. Now imagine that your internet service provider says that in order to go over AT&T-owned continental backbone, from your datacenter in Dallas, Texas, to Los Angeles, they provide 1.5 Kb/s at the standard rate, the next 30Kb/s at $0.03 per Kb/s and anything above that at $0.05 per Kb/s. The next month, your little web site gets a bill for $38,960 for continental backbone useage, and you decide: "Hell, ain't worth it" and you shut it down.

Sounds far fetched?

The numbers may not add up (these were pulled right out of the ether) but that's essentially what the deal will be.

Video

Now, you might think: I want video to work well on the web and I don't care how it happens, I'll just trust the media company. You want video? Get a Netflix account. Here's a sign up link for you. Go stream the 12,000 titles they have available, and spend the rest of you life on the couch.

Don't be a victims of marketing

See, the internet is already capable of delivering video straight to your TV. Don't be fooled by the telecommunication companies. Their marketing departments hire people with degrees from fancy universities in order to create specially-crafted messages to trick and confuse you into thinking that it is in your best interest to give them more money. Think about that. They pay people to trick you. Is that who you want to trust? No wonder they're rich and you're not.

Phone

Phone calls? Get skype. Or get Time Warner (substitute your cable company's offering) digital phone service. I just got that at home and it works great. Oh, what's that? It works "Just Fine" over the regular internet.

Geeky Stuff

Finally... Some people do work with the internet. Are you a system administrator who remotes into computers across the net? Do you ssh into your *nix boxen across the planet (and beyond)? Do you use GotoMyPC, webex, or even copilot? Get ready for the "Enhanced Service Delivery Fee" coming to you from your friendly local telco.

What you can do

In the grand sceme of things, not much. Just be find out how your elected representatives feel about this issue and vote against them in the next election if what they do is not what you want them to do. That's the way it works in this country.

Oh, wait, how will you find out what they are doing with your money unless there is solid, independent reporting out there?

Remember: Don't be a victim of marketing.

Avira AntiVir false positives

2009-03-17T05:12:00.000-07:00

Avira AntiVir personal keeps getting false positives on http://stereopsis.com/flux/

No good.

A comment to Seth Godin

2009-03-06T04:43:00.000-08:00

I was going to leave a comment on his blog, yet I could not find the "comment" link. It's pretty ironic based on what the post was about... Anyway, that's not what I'm here for.

Yesterday at the office I searched for "health net" (the company I work for) in search.twitter.com. As you can imagine, I found some interesting comments.

I thought, mmm, who is "girlgonechild"? So I followed the link, which let to her tweeter account, that showed 1000+ followers. I thought, ok, she's a little famous. From there I noted her facebook page, which is open to all, and has pictures of her. So I thought, OK, she's real. meaning she's not a Loser who makes herself look like a Winner through the veil of Photoshop. Then I notice she wrote for the Huffington Post. She has reach, that twitterer!

So I send her an email... (lemme dig.)

Rebecca,

Saw your comment about Health Net on twitter.

I work for Health Net in IT. I'm getting laid off in a few months so my loyalty is near-zero, yet I'd like to see if there is anything I can do to fix whatever problem you're having (maybe not for you, but for others who go through the same)

Sincerely,

Chris Mahan
chris.mahan@gmail.com
grandcentral (818) 671-1709

Which, a day later, I still have no reply to. But she's a busy mommy and she might get around to it and she might not. I have a busy mommy in my wife so I know how these things go.

How does this relate to Seth Godin's blog? We're getting there.

I replay the whole thing to my co-worker; a fellow IT guy. He listens patiently as I trail him through the twitter and the facebook and the huffingtonpost page, and then declares: "The company doesn't care about this one person."

Not wanting an argument, near my cube, I desist (well, I did make a few remarks later on).

The thing is, really, that this one person is a Health Net customer.

Now, in the screenshot, the second link is gone from twitter, but the "Health Net can suck it" on is still there. Some people might not like it, but it's better than a lawsuit, you know?

Now we're getting to Seth's point.

Why did Rebecca vent on twitter? Does she vent on twitter about her local grocery store? I bet not. I bet that when she has a problem at the local grocery store, she goes to an employee there and lets them know what's up. If it's a bigger problem, I am sure she will find the manager and let him have it. And what will the store manager do? He will listen to her, and then he will either say that he will fix whatever the problem is, or otherwise explain why things are the way they are. Either way, though, he will say: "thank you for letting me know".

And that is what Health Net is not doing: allowing the customer to walk up to someone (in person, via phone, IM, email, matters not) , letting them know what's wrong, and getting that "Thank you for letting us know" statement.

Now, in all fairness, Health Net does have a customer service line. But I wonder how effectively they listened to Rebecca Woolf. I wonder how well they said "Thank you for letting us know."

Do I care? Yes. Because every two weeks I draw a paycheck, and in there is a little money that comes from Rebecca's bank account that she could have used for her son and daughter, so I certainly hope the money she gave us wasn't wasted but instead provided value to her and her family.

So when she writes "Health Net can suck it", I start to wonder whether we're actually delivering the value.

Oh, and by the way: Rebecca Woolf produces outstanding content: see the article and watch the video.

Asala Nasri

2009-02-03T00:23:00.000-08:00

I recently discovered the music of Asala Nasri, and I really like it!

Update: Bought a CD of her music. (I know, amazing, huh? I bought a CD.)

Jay Gellert on Marketplace.com

2009-01-30T15:12:00.000-08:00

Health Net CEO Jay Gellert was on marketplace.com and spoke about the future of health insurance.

Bored in Biology

2009-01-30T12:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks to extreme censorship of high school students and the most inane reasons for being expelled, I am now bringing you an anonymous comment by a highschooler about her biology class this morning:

Forgive the childish rant, but it must be done.

Sitting in biology class is probably one of the most painful things in highschool. It doesn't help that I don't like the subject, or it's just impossible to understand, but then you add my teacher to the equation and it equals nap time.

Sometimes she talks to us like kindergardeners, other times she talks in the most annoying monotone that stays at one tone for a few minutes, and then goes up and down in a "set in stone" schedual.

A woman with that much education, at that age, just doesn't work for highschool Biology. Normally, I have biology at the end of the day, and so I get tired anyway.... But on fridays, I have it before lunch. It's 11:53, and I swear I am going to die of boredom...

Interesting concept. Gaza 2009

2009-01-20T23:25:00.000-08:00

Gaza 2009: The first war won by civilians? Civilians on the ground, civilians in democracies around the world voicing their outrage, overwhelming official news channels through the internet and cell-phone technology, making boots on the ground change direction through bits on the wire/less?

Discuss.

200 million bombs in Laos

2009-01-20T22:56:00.000-08:00

Just watched on AlJazeera english. The US dropped 200 million bombs in Laos. Many people are maimed and die each year, especially children, who play with cluster bombs or gather them for metal recycling.

World-class reporting. A bit sided to Middle-Eastern/Muslim sentiments, but not more than the BBC is to western sentiments, in my opinion.

My message to Brad Sherman, my US House Representative.

2009-01-13T16:47:00.000-08:00

Dear Brad,

I would like to voice my deep concern over the Israeli government's handling of their offensive against Hamas in the Gaza territory. I am deeply concerned that Israel is not doing what it should to protect civilians in Gaza, specifically using weapons such as white phosphorus on civilian areas, not allowing sufficient humanitarian aid such as water, food and medical supplies, as well as not allowing Red Cross/Red Crescent personnel access to injured civilians, and not allowing Egyptian ambulances into the Gaza territory to evacuate injured civilians to hospitals in Egypt that have the capacity to treat the injured and have announced their readiness to do so immediately.

I do agree that Israel has a right to defend itself, and that the Hamas group is a legitimate military target because of their daily rocket fire on Israeli territory.

I do not agree, however, that this attack on Gaza grants them "carte blanche" to conduct a punitive campaign on Gaza civilians, as indeed their military tactics, as well as media and humanitarian blockade of Gaza looks like in my eyes.

I would like you to work on my behalf to place pressure on Israel to allow full humanitarian and media access to Gaza, as well as restrict their use of weaponry that according to the international community should not be used in heavily populated areas.

I do not know how much you can do, but I urge you to do as much as you can.

Please let me know what I can personally do to help.

Very sincerely,

Christopher Mahan

What's the best way to help the children of Gaza

2009-01-13T15:33:00.000-08:00

I have some time, some money, and some US State and Federal representatives letter-writing availability.

What's the best way to help the children in Gaza?

New Friends

2009-01-13T07:06:00.000-08:00

The US needs new friends, because our friendship with Israel is proving quite embarrassing. Why embarrassing? Using white phosphorus on civilians? Not allowing the Red Cross access to injured civilians, not allowing humanitarian aid such as water and food to reach civilians, and not allowing world journalists to enter the combat zone? Not exactly the sort of things that give a warm fuzzy feeling to people around the world.

Not exactly the sort of friends we want to have, is it?

No Support for Israel

2009-01-10T07:52:00.000-08:00

The use of high-explosive weapons against women and children by the Israeli Defense Forces, in violation of UN orders, have demonstrated to me that the Israeli leadership is no longer accountable to the world community and is not to be supported.

While I accept that Israel has a right to defend itself, there is a difference between self-defense and use of high-explosives in a densely populated civilian area. Israel has crossed that line and should be both condemned and punished.

I will no longer support Israel businesses with my money, and I will press my government representatives to not only stop supporting the State of Israel in any way, but also to place political and military pressure to force the Israeli government to cease their offensive against civilians.

Furthermore, the US should do everything in its power to support the UN's efforts to provide food, water, medical supplies, and other forms of support.

Furthermore, the Israeli blockade of Gaza needs to end. They are hurting the civilian population of Gaza by maintaining the siege, and they need to stop.

The Israeli argue that they are only defending themselves against terrorists. I suggest they are not willing to create a society in which terrorism would become obsolete.

International Red Cross Claims IDF hinders its ambulances

2009-01-09T03:46:00.001-08:00

The International Red Cross, on their website, claims the Israeli Defense Forces blocked ambulances from reaching wounded in Gaza from January 3, 2009, only allowing them in on January 7, four days later. Unbelievable.

Wearing black

2009-01-09T02:46:00.000-08:00

Taking a cue from Johnny Cash's song "Man in Black" and changing the blog colors to black, because something in me died when the IDF killed children in Gaza with artillery shells and rockets paid for by US taxpayer money; my money. This is a great injustice and must end.

Not Happy

2009-01-07T16:24:00.001-08:00

I'm not going to tell Israel how to conduct its foreign policy. I am going to tell my government to stop sending my money to Israel.

China factory -> FedEx -> Your House

2008-11-30T00:21:00.000-08:00

Great article from Robert Scoble about the changes coming in goods creation and distribution.

Par les soirs bleus d'été

2008-11-15T00:54:00.000-08:00

A poem by Arthur Rimbaud. 1870.

Par les soirs bleus d'été, j'irai dans les sentiers,
Picoté par les blés, fouler l'herbe menue :
Rêveur, j'en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.
Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.

Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien :
Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme,
Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,
Par la Nature, -- heureux comme avec une femme.

Also in "Corto Maltese en Siberie."

For those of you who don't speak french, let me just say that being able to read Arthur Rimbaud is a particular pleasure.

I will not attempt a translation; my effort would undoubtedly fall short.

Peopleware, where are you?

2008-11-13T00:05:00.000-08:00

Who's got my copy of Peopleware?

Learning jQuery

2008-11-12T23:40:00.000-08:00

Great resource for learning jquery at learningjquery.com. Thanks Karl!

On Azure

2008-11-04T22:28:00.000-08:00

on Azure, at The Reg.

IBM Fubared in Texas

2008-11-04T22:05:00.000-08:00

The register points out that Texas Governor Rick Perry is mighty sore with IBM over some, how shall we say, slight shortcomings over their backup strategy. This would not be a big deal if IBM hadn't lost data collected during an 8 months medicare fraud investigation by the state Attorney General because of failed backups. Turns out they hadn't been doing the backups correctly at 20 Texas state agencies.

Don't they know Texas is the state where they shoot first and ask questions later?

The cynic in me is wondering who is going to run the backup systems for Health Net's* members health records... Oh, that's right: IBM, since they just took over that job...

Where's Chuck Norris and the Texas Rangers when you need them?

* I work at Health Net, although I'll be released as part of their outsourcing of IT to IBM, AT&T and Cognizant.

Stackoverflow

2008-10-30T17:06:00.001-07:00

Joel Spolsky talks about stackoverflow.com in this Inc.com article and what he would have done to screw it up if he had been more involved. Real interesting read.

Page redirect in python

2008-10-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

from: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2001-March/075911.html

how to do a web page redirect in python:

print "Location: http://your.safe.url\n\n"

Is the Hourly Model Broken? with an answer.

2008-10-07T11:59:00.000-07:00

I answer sogrady's question "Is the Hourly Model Broken?" thus:

I look at things this way:

All money (the whole of all the cash available today worldwide) is the future value of monetizeable labor (ml). This in turn is the product of human effort (he), skills (s), and tools (t). For this nifty equation:

ml = he (times) s (time) t

Note that there is no "time" element. It is assumed in the "human effort part". Also, skill includes knowledge.

(skill is a multiplier, so unskilled but not impaired: skill = 1)
(tools is a multiplier, so untooled but not impaired: tools = 1)

Note that tools include material (such as ore, wheat, flour, paper, whatever) and actual tools (computers, hammers, image-editors, trucks and airplanes, etc)

Note that skills include physical and mental abilities, as well as knowledge.

Now, tools are bought my monetized labor, so this creates a recursive equation:

tools = ml = he (times) s (times) t

and eventually leads to

tools = ml = he (times) s

So ultimately tools can be reduced out of the equation.

Which means money is human effort multiplied by skill.

Now, human effort is the activity that performs an output.

Skill is something that applied to human labor allows the reduction of the amount of time used to complete the activity, and/or increase the quality of the output, or even allow the output to be created.

For example, someone with poor English composition skills would take a very long time to write a analysis paper on Virtualization in 2008, regardless of the amount of effort expended. Someone with great English composition skills would be produce that output in much less time. Someone with no knowledge of computers, regardless of English composition skills, might never be able to produce the output.

The hourly model assumes a fixed skill level, and measures output in amount of effort over time.

This model is flawed for information technology because skill varies widely and a very skilled person could produce with very little effort (time) what an average person might take weeks to do.

So you need to stop thinking of "hours" worked, but rather of units of output. Since in the information age, you cannot readily standardize on what a unit is (A quip? A paper? A blog comment? A remark in a call? A reference to your company in the WSJ? Attending a conference?) you end up having to lump these things into "What Analysts Do" (conveniently initialized as "WAD") and applying an arbitrary measure such as hours for billing purposes.

I say create a new billing term such as Work Unit (WU). In your contract, instead of "number of hours included" put " number of Analyst Work Units included" and use those up as you go in the month, then summarize:

Work Units expended from 9/1/2008 to 10/1/2008

Blogging presence: 400
Conference Calls : 1600
Report Preparation: 2800
Report Delivery: 900
Direct converstations with Company empplyees: 800
Twitter: 700
Facebook: 600
Friendster: 500
Digg: 250
Press Releases: 2500
etc: 900
etc: 400
etc: 40

Then, you review that with the client. If they want you to do more or less of each type of category, discuss strategy, tactics, and adjust.

Try to expend all "available work units per month", or roll them over (to accumulate for big projects). Adjust monthly billing to client to reflect their usage.

Finally, don't go crazy on the minute tracking. Ballpark it. The analyst needs to be fair, but who cares if 8 blog comments are worth 320 work units? Are then individual blog comments each worth 40 points? Not really. One might be long and insightful and worth 250, the other 7 might be simple me-toos.

Makes sense?

jEdit MetalColor plugin thank you.

2008-10-06T10:25:00.000-07:00

A big thank-you to Jocelyn Turcotte for making the MetalColor plugin for jEdit. Works great!

On the Super Geeks and Management

2008-10-06T09:21:00.000-07:00

A response to Simon Stapleton's question:

@Chris - how much of the problem is caused by management challenge (ie. how do we manage geeks), and how much of is social (ie. how do geeks fit into society)?

@Simon:

This is a very heavy subject. The management challenge is that the geeks are in many ways much smarter than management, much more logical, much more rigorous in their thinking. The geeks operate in the Real World much more than management. Technical geeks are very good at knowing what can and what can’t be done in the physical world. They are closer to the metals, so to speak.

Management is more into what can and can’t be done in the social world, the human interaction, human motivation arena.

In the world of programming and hardware, the laws of physics absolutely dictate. There is no getting around them. For programmers specifically, the ones and zeros are immutable. They are subatomic particles. There is no getting around them. The trick is to take these ones and zeros, and make smart applications out of them. This requires rigorous thinking.

As Brian Kernighan wrote: “Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming” (from http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch01s06.html).

There is a black-and-whiteness to geekdom that’s hard to avoid. It either works or doesn’t. It either compiles or doesn’t. It either conducts current or doesn’t. There’s not a lot of gray area. In management, however, it’s all grey areas; nuances upon nuances. It’s a balance of power, where neither side is either right or wrong, where people measure effectiveness by the ability to influence by the gentlest of prodding. Geeks aren’t about that. The world of geeks is cut and dry.

Now, society needs geeks. Someone invented fire, the wheel, the boat, the sword, the bow, the nuclear reactor. These are all geeks. Look at Einstein: He was downright weird. Right, but weird. Deep down, society respects the geek, because it needs it. The geek is the guy who tinkers and comes up with what makes life easier. Management may have the idea of coinage, but the guy who figured out how to make the actual coins, he’s the geek. But geeks are not especially social company.

The problem with managing geeks is that geeks explore. Exploration is a faith-based process. Faith in the ability of the human mind to come up with concept and apply them to the real world. Now how do you quantify that in dollars? It’s really hard to put in a projection, a simulation, a project plan. What the geek really says when he says “I’ll look into it” is that he is going to rely on the unexplainable abilities of his brain to generate good ideas to solve the problem. He will rely on his past experience, his know-how, shall we say, to solve the problem. Can he write a manual of how that process works step by step? No.

When unshackled from the chains of management process, and keeping to his own rigorous thinking and mental rational triage, he will much more effectively identify optimal real-world solutions that address real-world problems.

The process that management would place on the geek is but a pale shadow of the geek’s own logical thinking capabilities.

And since the geeks are already some of the smartest people on the planet, how can business school graduates possibly come up with something better?

This is why they are generally disregarded by real geeks as incompetent and meddlesome.

Now, why do business people insist on fostering processes on the geeks? Because it works in manufacturing and fast-food. Process-lovers think that written-down, formal procedures are the ultimate in “management”. Geeks don’t. Geeks rely on the power of the trained human brain. And when the disagreement is framed this way, most can readily agree that the geeks just might be right.

Essentially, geeks self-manage. Placing management on them only frustrates everyone involved, and leads to sub-optimal performance.

SO this is my answer: Geeks self-manage. Traditional management doesn’t work on geeks.

Comment in the AIG forum at yahoo.

2008-10-03T09:41:00.000-07:00

Same here. 800B USD is too much money to spend on something that has a marginal chance of working. Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac, Bears Stears, AIG, WAMU, and Wachovia action hasn't stopped the slide, what makes you think eight hundred measly billion dollars if going to reverse the trend? Better for the US Government (the People) not to waste all that money (a substantial portion of which would go to foreign investment houses, and the rest will be used most inefficiently) but keep it to fund work projects like in the New Deal, and to fund education projects and state services. You realize how many billions a year it will take to service that debt? $50B a year just in interest! The Bush economy has been based on borrowing from the future to pay for the present. Eventually, though, the interest on the debt overtake you and you have to file for bankruptcy. You want the US govt to go bankrupt? It will if there is a depression and it carries 2 trillion in debt. It will either be: service the debt, or pay soldiers payroll. Not a good choice.

Assume there's going to be a severe recession. Property prices are still about 50% overpriced. Keeping them artificially high through a bailout will mean less mobility and flexibility long term for the US workforce (too high mortgages, not enough money to save and spend; can't sell the house, can't move to take a better job).

Let the house of cards fall, but keep the cash to rebuild something else after that. If you burn the cash now, it will be a much bigger disaster, much longer in recovering. (My wife is Japanese. It happened to their country 1989-2006. It wasn't pretty for the common salaryman. You wonder why they work until 10 pm every single night? They had to to meet expenses.)

Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein are not listening to me.

2008-10-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

They voted yes to the $700B, no, make that $800B bailout in the Senate, despite the fact that the American public is vociferously opposed to their spending our money that way. This only means that they are not listening to us, that they are not listening to me.

So, this is my personal guarantee that come next elections, I will not vote for either of them.

My House rep Brad Sherman is earning brownie points big time with his opposition to the bailout. He can expect my support in future elections.

Check who your reps are at this handy locator.

Solaris on its deathbed

2008-09-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

An article in the New York Times about Solaris being on its deathbed.

Bad Bailout, Bad.

2008-09-19T11:12:00.000-07:00

That article, and that story at Bloomberg. Bailout Bad.

It's like giving money to gamblers.

I have a really bad feeling about that. Now we start to see the extent to which the not-so-All-Powerful US government can go. It's not going to be enough.

The day the US government balks at the buying of the bad debt, (say when it reaches 1 trillion) the economy will still tank.

The fact of the matter is that the US needs inflation now to drive salaries up so that people can actually pay their 30-year fixed mortgages. There's nothing that can be done with ARM. They are going to default wholesale. There's no reason for people to try to work out a deal on their ARM now... Just wait a few months and sell it to the Govt.

I think Wall Street is going to realize this soonest. And then: roller-coaster again.

great question at stackoverflow

2008-09-16T11:54:00.001-07:00

Great question at stackoverflow. What should developer know before building a public website. Lots of useful info and insight.

This website from Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky is turning out to be highly valuable. I hope they can scale, because they're about to be the Hot Property on the web.

stackoverflow.com is out of private beta!

2008-09-15T02:01:00.000-07:00

Go get your fix, great unwashed programmer masses, stackoverflow is out of private beta as of a few minutes ago!

Update: It's not out of beta, it's just out of private beta.

Instructions for fast windows vista defragmentation.

2008-09-14T23:40:00.000-07:00

fast being relative of course.

Windows Vista Free Registry Cleaner Instructions

2008-09-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

From a post at msdn forums, there is a free registry cleaner at OneCare, http://onecare.live.com/scan. For vista, make sure you select the beta.

MSDN not working with Firefox on my PC

2008-09-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

No matter what I do I keep getting this error when accessing the msdn homepage. It says:

Sorry, we were unable to service your request.

For the latest headlines and to see what's new, visit the MSDN home page.

Check out the various MSDN Developer Centers where you can find the latest product information, technical resources, and community offerings.

Visit the MSDN Library for the latest technical articles, reference documentation, downloads, and more.

This does not occur in IE6 or in Google Chrome. Go figure.

Update: I figured it out. I was logged in with my live account. When I'm logged out, it doesn't happen.

Tried again: Logged it to my live account, got the error; logged out, error went away.

snopes on the Sarah Palin letters controversy

2008-09-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Interesting...

I was famous* last year and I didn't even know.

2008-09-12T01:36:00.000-07:00

I was quoted by Cote of redmonk.org in his blog. And I didn't even know.

As an aside, I found this great article on programmer productivity.

* "famous" in this context has been uncommensurately augmented.

Assorted Stuff

2008-09-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

My sister Juliette had back surgery. She's OK according to the doctors, but can't get into a car for the next 45 days. I bought her a copy of the Lord of the Rings (the book) for her on amazon.com for $1.40. Shipping to France will offset my savings.

I tried Google Chrome, but after about 1 hour, I uninstalled it. It's true it's better than IE, but it ain't better than firefox; not for me anyway.

I tried ubiquity, the mozilla add-on, and that was Spectacular!

I'm in the beta for stackoverflow.com. Shaping up very nicely. Lots of difficult questions coming up on that site. Slant toward .NYET, but otherwise good.

Oh, Simon Stapleton sent me $10 for being the commentator of the month for August 2008 at simonstapleton.com. See, $10 bought a link. And my gratitude.

Heat map of gas prices in the US

2008-08-28T16:56:00.001-07:00

find out where the gas is cheaper!

Python 3.0 documentation

2008-08-28T16:46:00.000-07:00

It's in beta, but won't be for long.

Threaded Documenting XML RPC server over HTTPS

2008-08-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

I have been looking for something like this for a while now... Excellent!

Time Warner Cable being very slow

2008-08-23T08:11:00.001-07:00

my download speed is smaller than my upload speed.

Following advice from obscure unremembered forum postings: placing the wireless router further away from the cable modem (from 1/2 foot to 3 feet) seems to have resolved this.

stackoverflow

2008-08-21T00:37:00.000-07:00

I've been using the beta of stackoverflow.com, and so far I am very pleased.

Update: Today (August 26, 2008) at 2:29 PM, the site has been down for more than 30 minutes so far. Not good.

Unhappy Road Runner Customer

2008-08-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

These past 10 days, roadrunner (time warner) has been completely horrible for me. Very slow internet, DNS issues. Unreliable.

Perspective for Firefox

2008-08-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

This is a firefox extension that checks the certificates of websites that firefox would normally give the horrible warning window about. I just installed it.

Coworking

2008-08-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

I'm desperately waiting for someone to open up a coworking facility in the San Fernando Valley.

Not Responding Too Well

2008-08-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I had food poisoning and this week the painters are at the house (the router is in a box) so there has been and will continue to be limited connectivity/activity from me. Even the answering machine is not plugged in!

August 15 update: The house is almost finished and looks great. The internet is back, but the house is a mess, so I have no time to get on the computer at home.

Woo Hoo!!!

2008-08-07T16:39:00.001-07:00

I just made a penny on google adsense with this blog. from 255 impressions. that means, at that rate, that I 've got to show 255 million ads per month to make $10,000 /month.

Of course, hosting with blogger, I don't have to worry about server scalability at all... So, I just have to get really good at writing great stuff to get the 80% of the US population coming to my blog each month. Of course by then I'll be on CNN and Larry King and giving advice to Rupert Murdoch...

Onward!

Jeff Atwood on project management

2008-08-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

Well written blog on the ills of bad project management. Lots of good stuff in the comments.

Blastwave unavailable, genunix down

2008-08-06T20:40:00.000-07:00

But genunix.org/wiki still available at http://204.152.191.100/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Update: Glynn Foster twits: seemingly dennis is tired of funding it, and some internal politics around not accepting funding offers

Update: Dennis Clarke says that what Glynn wrote (above) is incorrect.

Update: genunix.org is available at http://genunix2.org/

Update: genunix.org is available again, at genunix.org.

Update: August 8 2008: more updates: Dennis is still in charge of Blastwave Inc. The servers are still running, and he's in the process of making some legal changes with blastwave. Note that I am just compiling information from various publicly available sources and you need to research this further before making assumptions. Want me to be more specific? leave comments asking me to, otherwise, I've got other things to do.

Update: August 12 2008: More info from Ben Rockwood.

The final word: August 21, 2008, from Dennis Clarke himself: http://www.blastwave.org/dclarke/blog/?q=node/111

on Collective Stupidity

2008-08-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

Bruce Eckel asks "Why does a company full of smart people make stupid decisions? How do we keep it from happening? "

I replied at the artima forum:

I think it's because companies are insular in nature, and the longer one is in the company, the more skewed their view of the real world is. Companies tend to stabilize things, (to have repeatable process, etc) so over time become a less challenging environment than the real world for the people who have been there a long time and have learned the politics of the company. These people tend to be managers and lifers (hoping company won't fail before they retire).

In this safer environment, the instinct is to hold steady. And that means not introducing new technology as rapidly as in the real world (which means you fall behind eventually) and not bringing new ideas as rapidly as in the real world (which means you fall behind eventually), and ultimately you have old technology and old thinking and that will not produce solutions to real world problems.

This is why startups are more brutal but more innovative. They live in the "current real world month" and have to deliver valuable solutions to actual current problems.

So, collective stupidity happens when people try to apply organizationally-reinforced old thinking and old tech to current problems.

I realize I didn't answer the question fully, but I think what needs to be done becomes painfully obvious.

Edison

2008-08-06T09:38:00.001-07:00

I'm downloading this thing. My work PC can sure use it.

Response to "11 Behaviors Most Disliked by IT Leaders" by Simon Stapleton.

2008-07-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

My Comments:

1) On procrastination: People who don't want to make any decision except for 100% certainty decisions are afraid. Afraid of what, you ask? Afraid of being criticized by their supervisors.

2) People BS to cover their perceived inadequacies. They want to look good. Again, out of fear their true nature will seem lacking.

3) Too much detail: They want to preempt the uncomfortable questions by higher ups. Higher ups have a way of asking questions that often make the underling feel belittled/threatened.

4) On over-use of process: it's classic CYA. If the shit hits the fan, then you can point to the process and say: "But, I followed the process".

5) Coffee-machine diplomacy, or, what I like to call "back-door shenanigans" are a symptom that open meetings and discussions do not foster openness and frankness from the rank and file.

6) Irrational Management: Nobody can be an expert. Granted. But in many companies, "I don't know" is the wrong answer. So better an answer that doesn't make sense than no answer. People would rather be known as hard-asses than ignorants.

7) Defensiveness. Being defensive comes from fear. Fear of not being accepted, valued, and recognized.

8) Victim Mentality. Sometimes, just sometimes, people might accurately see themselves as victims of a system that is designed to grind them down and spit them out. The only way out of that is to foster very open communications and to have great management skills. An anecdote: my 2007 performance review was abysmal. I blamed poor management of the resource I provide. Management disagreed. But wait: here's an interesting fact: in 2007 I had (count'em) 8 different managers. Did I play the Victim card or did I point out a real problem?

9) Email-itis. Again, fueled by fear. Much email is of the CYA sort. Also, it's easier to bring someone up to speed when there's an email trail. As far as bcc: that's either CYA or politics/gossip. As far as mass-email, that's disseminating information. A management function. If people are doing it in email, that means management is not doing it well.

10) Blackberry ignorance. Doing anything in a meeting besides being involved is detrimental. Perhaps, though, the meeting is rambling endlessly and the people who want to get work done have to do it in spite of the meeting. My recommendation: post a clear meeting agenda ahead of time and invite people on a voluntary basis. If they don't want to come to meetings, this says a lot about the value of the meetings.

11) Merit-whores: People do it because it works. it works at getting raises, promotions, visibility. It works because companies don't have a good systems or valuing individual contributions.

My take: the IT leaders are the ones who cause most of these problems. I would suggest they read about the Victim Mentality (point 8 in the post), as well as pick up The Elegant Solution: Toyota's Formula for Mastering Innovation (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0743290178/ - less than $5 used).

Simon, overall, quite interesting information.

This is also posted at 11 Behaviors Most Disliked by IT Leaders.

A list apart web developer survey

2008-07-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

I just took the web developer survey at AListApart. Took about 3 minutes. Interesting.

appsnap

2008-07-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

I downloaded, installed and ran appsnap, a pseudo-application package manager for windows. So far it has worked very well.

Jennifer Oya's blog

2008-07-29T16:21:00.002-07:00

Hasn't been updated in a while, but I'm gonna work on getting service restored.

Update: August 18, service restored. See here for the latest and greatest!

Todd's Place on Sunday

2008-07-29T10:14:00.001-07:00

I went to Todd Loewenstein's house last Sunday (july 27 2008) and had BBQ tri-tip, sausage, chicken, as well as good beer, ice cream, oreo cheesecake, and chips. There, I met his friend Curtis, and spoke to Drew, who's a teacher/administrator at Inglewood School District. Drew said he had a good idea on how to fix the educational system and I look forward to that conversation.

Thanks for the great food Todd!

Todd runs arcostream.com, and I'm doing some work there.

fsrm quotas and free space

2008-07-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

My company recently implemented windows 2003 server file servers with directory quotas. So far so good. The problem is how does the user find out the amount of space remaining on the directory. google.com and even cuil.com (not that I was expecting much from it) can't get me much help. In both cases I get led to a technet article, but it doesn't help.

I'll be looking on and off for a solution, and if I find anything I'll post here.

Update: found this basically describing the problem.

removed

2008-07-25T23:40:00.000-07:00

entry removed

Rosemary at FreshBooks.com

2008-07-25T11:16:00.001-07:00

So right after my post on freshbooks, I get this email:

Hi Chris,

I noticed your mention of FreshBooks on your recent blog post and wanted to send you a note thanking you for the coverage! (I work as their pr representation) If you haven’t seen it yet, I thought you may want be interested in their new upgrade! Details below, enjoy FreshBooks!

Best,

Rosemarie

Nice!

Tim Peter's blog, a puzzle, and instant solution.

2008-07-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

I was at http://www.timpeter.com/blog/ and I thought to myself, woah, the web site is slow, is he that busy? I hop to twitter, and what do I find? Tim complaining about dreamhost. Riddle solved.

The twitter fail whale is in the house.

2008-07-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

Instants after my twitter post, the failwhale rears its sleepy head. Coincidence?

Volunteer Community Organizer Job for pmclinic

2008-07-24T14:01:00.000-07:00

Scott Berkun put out the call. Let him not be disappointed!

OpenProject

2008-07-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

I've been looking for a SaaS (hate that acronym already) that helps doing project management. I've found openproj, and while I tried it, I can't help but think that this is an overkill... What else should I use for simple, simple stuff?

Started using FreshBooks

2008-07-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

I started using freshbooks, and so far, so good!

Easy to use, feature-rich, and fast.

Go Sign Up!

Note: The link above will get me referral cash from freshbooks. You want me to be financially prosperous, right? Right?

Thank you :)

Rich Burridge of Sun Microsystems Riffed

2008-07-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

Good luck with your job hunt!