Sunday, March 29, 2009
what's with all the old posts on this blog?
Now and then I create posts for this blog and save them as drafts. This morning I finally got around to publishing them and decided to leave the publish dates as the date I composed the draft.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
People Who Read Don't Know How to Live
I don't think anyone would be surprised to think that literature is sometimes thought of as being a high brow kind of thing. In fact some probably feel that is a great thing. The idea though that all of reading has moved up to that deluxe apartment in the sky known as the ivory tower is surprising. A recent survey in the UK concerning attitudes about reading found that
By "such families" the survey is referring to people "characterized as lower income, non-professional families".
I found the survey troubling on many levels. I think simply as a humanitarian, the idea that something that is possibly essential to alleviating poverty (education) would be discounted in such a way. And reading can also convey the things about life that make life worth living. Certainly this is not absolute and one can have a deeply meaningful or wealthy life without reading, but the forces of good often rely on reading.
As someone in the world of publishing I of course found the survey worrisome though not as worrisome. I'm not sure the business of books has relied on this group. As the survey points out though paying attention to this resource is important to the book world. It deserves thought as both a growth opportunity and as a potential market trend that could encompass a greater number of people.
I'm curious how bundled internet data (such as a printed book version of a blog or chat logs printed as novels) will affect this. When someone moans about no one reading anymore, someone often points out that more people read more often, it's just that we tend not to count reading on a screen as "reading". And maybe that's the slight of hand that can allow publishers to reach out to the people in the survey. Get the people reading on screen in blogs, chat rooms, VR worlds (E.G., Second Life), or video games and then put that media into a printed book.
Or maybe don't worry about that, but just concentrate on getting the book content into various nontraditional streams. Which brings me back to my humanitarian perspective which says don't worry about print books, just make sure the ideas that inspire, the thoughts that turn minds, the concepts that create positive change, the tools of a better history; just make sure those things are imparted from generation to generation and the world may be healed some day.
in many such families, books were seen as alien and unattractive, while reading was considered an anti-social activity for people who, as one respondent said, "don’t know how to live".
By "such families" the survey is referring to people "characterized as lower income, non-professional families".
I found the survey troubling on many levels. I think simply as a humanitarian, the idea that something that is possibly essential to alleviating poverty (education) would be discounted in such a way. And reading can also convey the things about life that make life worth living. Certainly this is not absolute and one can have a deeply meaningful or wealthy life without reading, but the forces of good often rely on reading.
As someone in the world of publishing I of course found the survey worrisome though not as worrisome. I'm not sure the business of books has relied on this group. As the survey points out though paying attention to this resource is important to the book world. It deserves thought as both a growth opportunity and as a potential market trend that could encompass a greater number of people.
I'm curious how bundled internet data (such as a printed book version of a blog or chat logs printed as novels) will affect this. When someone moans about no one reading anymore, someone often points out that more people read more often, it's just that we tend not to count reading on a screen as "reading". And maybe that's the slight of hand that can allow publishers to reach out to the people in the survey. Get the people reading on screen in blogs, chat rooms, VR worlds (E.G., Second Life), or video games and then put that media into a printed book.
Or maybe don't worry about that, but just concentrate on getting the book content into various nontraditional streams. Which brings me back to my humanitarian perspective which says don't worry about print books, just make sure the ideas that inspire, the thoughts that turn minds, the concepts that create positive change, the tools of a better history; just make sure those things are imparted from generation to generation and the world may be healed some day.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
isinglass finings
After a Facebook friend posted about Guinness not being vegetarian, I looked into it.
The issue is isinglass finings which come fish. It is "the purest form of animal gelatin" that is basically used as a filter. So it's not actually an ingredient, but small amounts make it into your beer or wine which is of course important to some vegetarians (like me). According to wikipedia:
My guess is that this is largely a cosmetic thing done to make the beer or wine more palatable. If it wasn't done it'd probably look like mold was floating in it.
What's annoying to vegetarians is that this process isn't necessary, because according to wiki, "left to itself, beer will clear naturally; however, the use of isinglass finings accelerates the process." Some breweries such as my favorite, Magic Hat, uses a centrifuge as a vegetarian alternative. From what I see on the net they began using finings, but tested the centrifuge on the beer Mother Lager and then years ago moved over to using the centrifuge on all their beers.
It seems a centrifuge is a true alternative to isinglass finings, although I saw reference to Irish moss (a red algae), it is not a true alternative.
I have not found a general rule of thumb for knowing which wine is vegetarian; however, all beer from Germany is safe because of the Reinheitsgebot, a law passed in 1516 which requires beer to be made with only water, barley, and hops.
I'm not clear on whether Kosher wine is vegetarian, but as a general rule of thumb it sounds as though it is not. Isinglass from sturgeon (the "best-quality" isinglass) is not acceptable (some disagree), but "Isinglass also comes from carp, which is Kohser." I didn't find anything definitive, but one or two articles said Kosher wine uses isinglass finings.
If you are interested in Kosher food and vegetarianism, then you should look into a movement within Judaism called Eco-Kashrut. There is some buzz within the movement right now and I'm not convinced it has clearly defined itself, but someday we may have wine that is Eco-Kashrut meaning nothing unnecessarily suffered to create it. Whether that means fish being killed or workers being treated unfairly.
So the bottom line is that as with all foods if you're a strict vegetarian you have to do your research. Here's some helpful lists from wikipedia:
* [A list of vegetarian beers]
* [Beer and cider suitable for the Vegetarian]
The issue is isinglass finings which come fish. It is "the purest form of animal gelatin" that is basically used as a filter. So it's not actually an ingredient, but small amounts make it into your beer or wine which is of course important to some vegetarians (like me). According to wikipedia:
Isinglass is a substance obtained from the swimbladders of fish (especially Beluga sturgeon). It is a form of collagen used mainly for the clarification [IE, remove suspended solids and cloudiness] of wine and beer.
My guess is that this is largely a cosmetic thing done to make the beer or wine more palatable. If it wasn't done it'd probably look like mold was floating in it.
What's annoying to vegetarians is that this process isn't necessary, because according to wiki, "left to itself, beer will clear naturally; however, the use of isinglass finings accelerates the process." Some breweries such as my favorite, Magic Hat, uses a centrifuge as a vegetarian alternative. From what I see on the net they began using finings, but tested the centrifuge on the beer Mother Lager and then years ago moved over to using the centrifuge on all their beers.
It seems a centrifuge is a true alternative to isinglass finings, although I saw reference to Irish moss (a red algae), it is not a true alternative.
The process differs, however: isinglass is added at the end of the brewing process, before bottling, whereas Irish moss is added to the hot wort while it is being boiled, and primarily reduces hazes caused by proteins. Since the two fining agents act differently, some beers will make use of both.
I have not found a general rule of thumb for knowing which wine is vegetarian; however, all beer from Germany is safe because of the Reinheitsgebot, a law passed in 1516 which requires beer to be made with only water, barley, and hops.
I'm not clear on whether Kosher wine is vegetarian, but as a general rule of thumb it sounds as though it is not. Isinglass from sturgeon (the "best-quality" isinglass) is not acceptable (some disagree), but "Isinglass also comes from carp, which is Kohser." I didn't find anything definitive, but one or two articles said Kosher wine uses isinglass finings.
If you are interested in Kosher food and vegetarianism, then you should look into a movement within Judaism called Eco-Kashrut. There is some buzz within the movement right now and I'm not convinced it has clearly defined itself, but someday we may have wine that is Eco-Kashrut meaning nothing unnecessarily suffered to create it. Whether that means fish being killed or workers being treated unfairly.
So the bottom line is that as with all foods if you're a strict vegetarian you have to do your research. Here's some helpful lists from wikipedia:
* [A list of vegetarian beers]
* [Beer and cider suitable for the Vegetarian]
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
ColdFusion threads and hung servers
We had an issue today at work with ColdFusion brought to its knees by some unknown processes. The result was the error "java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: unable to create new native thread"
As I often do when googling a CF issue, I wound up on TalkingTree. Through it I found an Adobe post where I learned that you can send a kill -3 to the cfusion process and it will cause a full thread dump in the cfserver.log file.
So it seems we may need to tweak the NewNativeThread [ThreadWaitTimeout (currently 180) and the MaxHandlerThreads (currently 1000)] by determining the root cause of the server slowness. But of course to do that the server needs to get in a slow state again so we can use the fun kill -3.
As I often do when googling a CF issue, I wound up on TalkingTree. Through it I found an Adobe post where I learned that you can send a kill -3 to the cfusion process and it will cause a full thread dump in the cfserver.log file.
So it seems we may need to tweak the NewNativeThread [ThreadWaitTimeout (currently 180) and the MaxHandlerThreads (currently 1000)] by determining the root cause of the server slowness. But of course to do that the server needs to get in a slow state again so we can use the fun kill -3.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Making the private public and the corporate world
Is the same intuition that makes one want to separate public from private tied to what makes good corporate citizens?
When I first joined Facebook some time back it was because there was chatter about it at my workplace (somehow my personal world pushed me into MySpace but not Facebook). As an IT professional I made an account for wholly professional and not personal reasons. I found it humorous to see that most everyone I met from my personal world was on Facebook for exactly the same reason: their job. I felt like I was at a store where everyone was a "secret shopper". Where were the real customers?
This was probably caused by a short lived wave that swept the marketing world a year or two ago when corporations woke up to the social networking world and my connection to Facebook is now more personal than professional. Because of my initial interest, I have been very conscious of the distinctions of professional and personal worlds and how they blur in such communities. Our intuitions of what is public or private are challenged by social networking, while it seems the youth of today is untroubled by having such distinctions.
Some of my thinking on public versus private was solidified recently when I had the pleasure of hearing Fred Wilson speak. What became immediately apparent is that his life is public. Social technology has been good to him and in turn he's good to it by living his life equally in the digital and physical world. He is even willing to have his location available to family and some co-workers at any time from an application on his smart phone.
One of the first slides Fred displayed during his talk was of Napoleon Bonaparte saying, "I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up." Fred explained that this was what being in the venture capital world was like and that he knew he was no longer suited to be in a large corporation. He basically framed his advice to the corporation he was speaking to as, "I'm an outsider using these tools in an outside world, so some but not all of it will be useful to you," which was the perfect way to handle the politics of the situation (maybe he's not such an outsider).
What Fred was saying about himself is that he is used to being in control and would not be comfortable with the division of power in the corporate world. The other thing about Fred is that he is completely public with his private world. Check out his blog or twitter posts to get an idea.
So is it possible that the same intuition that makes one want to separate public from private is tied to what makes some people good corporate citizens? In some ways being subordinate is removing your personal feelings from your professional life. I still have to do what my boss asks me to do whether I personally agree or not. In fact most interactions in the corporate world involve compromise and one saves face partly by hiding the extent to which you are compromising. In your personal world you might complain in private about how right you thought you were, but you would hardly be able to work with others if you made your personal world public.
The youth of today seem to largely ignore the public and private distinction. Does this mean they are all Napoleons who will never be good corporate citizens? Will they be able to survive in the work world when the time comes?
But, maybe this is pushing it too far. One could say that business casual dress is making the personal public. When everyone wore suits the only way to be personal was with the tie, but now there's a myriad of acceptable clothes in the workplace which all reveal personal choice in the professional arena. Most people would no longer argue that one can be equally subordinate in a pair of jeans or a pair of dress pants (though the personal choice of one or the other might be telling).
In the end it might be that the inclination to be a good corporate citizen bundles a lot of concepts together. Some of them are essential to being a good corporate citizen (like being agreeable and following orders) and some are seemingly tied, but inessential (like casual dress and posting personal data online).
Recently I have become more public with my private world and feel two conflicting pressures from my professional life. The one is that I work in IT and understanding the social aspect of computing is essential, but the other is that I work at a corporation and negotiating the personal social world in a professional context is dangerous. So in this way, I am testing whether one can remain a good corporate citizen and share my personal world online, but the real test will be when the next generation free of personal private and professional public distinction enters the work place.
When I first joined Facebook some time back it was because there was chatter about it at my workplace (somehow my personal world pushed me into MySpace but not Facebook). As an IT professional I made an account for wholly professional and not personal reasons. I found it humorous to see that most everyone I met from my personal world was on Facebook for exactly the same reason: their job. I felt like I was at a store where everyone was a "secret shopper". Where were the real customers?
This was probably caused by a short lived wave that swept the marketing world a year or two ago when corporations woke up to the social networking world and my connection to Facebook is now more personal than professional. Because of my initial interest, I have been very conscious of the distinctions of professional and personal worlds and how they blur in such communities. Our intuitions of what is public or private are challenged by social networking, while it seems the youth of today is untroubled by having such distinctions.
Some of my thinking on public versus private was solidified recently when I had the pleasure of hearing Fred Wilson speak. What became immediately apparent is that his life is public. Social technology has been good to him and in turn he's good to it by living his life equally in the digital and physical world. He is even willing to have his location available to family and some co-workers at any time from an application on his smart phone.
One of the first slides Fred displayed during his talk was of Napoleon Bonaparte saying, "I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up." Fred explained that this was what being in the venture capital world was like and that he knew he was no longer suited to be in a large corporation. He basically framed his advice to the corporation he was speaking to as, "I'm an outsider using these tools in an outside world, so some but not all of it will be useful to you," which was the perfect way to handle the politics of the situation (maybe he's not such an outsider).
What Fred was saying about himself is that he is used to being in control and would not be comfortable with the division of power in the corporate world. The other thing about Fred is that he is completely public with his private world. Check out his blog or twitter posts to get an idea.
So is it possible that the same intuition that makes one want to separate public from private is tied to what makes some people good corporate citizens? In some ways being subordinate is removing your personal feelings from your professional life. I still have to do what my boss asks me to do whether I personally agree or not. In fact most interactions in the corporate world involve compromise and one saves face partly by hiding the extent to which you are compromising. In your personal world you might complain in private about how right you thought you were, but you would hardly be able to work with others if you made your personal world public.
The youth of today seem to largely ignore the public and private distinction. Does this mean they are all Napoleons who will never be good corporate citizens? Will they be able to survive in the work world when the time comes?
But, maybe this is pushing it too far. One could say that business casual dress is making the personal public. When everyone wore suits the only way to be personal was with the tie, but now there's a myriad of acceptable clothes in the workplace which all reveal personal choice in the professional arena. Most people would no longer argue that one can be equally subordinate in a pair of jeans or a pair of dress pants (though the personal choice of one or the other might be telling).
In the end it might be that the inclination to be a good corporate citizen bundles a lot of concepts together. Some of them are essential to being a good corporate citizen (like being agreeable and following orders) and some are seemingly tied, but inessential (like casual dress and posting personal data online).
Recently I have become more public with my private world and feel two conflicting pressures from my professional life. The one is that I work in IT and understanding the social aspect of computing is essential, but the other is that I work at a corporation and negotiating the personal social world in a professional context is dangerous. So in this way, I am testing whether one can remain a good corporate citizen and share my personal world online, but the real test will be when the next generation free of personal private and professional public distinction enters the work place.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
smart parking
From the smart USA Newsletter, vol. 17
Need a place to park in the New York City area? smart USA is excited to announce partnerships with three New York City area parking companies. Meyers Parking, Icon Parking Systems and AviStar Airport Parking now offer smart fortwo owners a 50 percent discount off daily and monthly posted parking rates at hundreds of locations across New York City.
[...]
Interested smart fortwo owners can visit Icon Parking Systems at www.weparknewyork.com to sign-up for this exciting offer. Icon’s Website also features an interactive map of locations, detailed information about their exclusive Price and Space Guarantee, access to discount coupons for Broadway Theatres, Times Square and Madison Square Garden, and an online request form that allows new monthly customers to inquire about seasonal discounts, location-specific availabilities and reduced monthly rates for commuters, storage and other very small/mini cars.
For smart fortwo owners traveling by plane out of the New York City area, AviStar Airport Parking, a wholly owned subsidiary of Parking Company America Airports, LLC (PCAA) is offering half price parking on the daily rate at both JFK and LaGuardia Airports. Customers wishing to take advantage of this special promotion are required to print a special coupon from www.airportcorporateparking.com/smartusa and present it to the cashier at the time of payment. AviStar Airport Parking offers additional services and amenities such as 24-hour shuttles to all terminals, free luggage assistance and free coffee and espresso in their lobbies. The AviStar Airport Parking promotion expires on April 30, 2009.
On Project - the personal story
When I worked on my first intranet application I worked with a lead programmer and a project manager. We would code all day long and maybe once every two or three months we would have a meeting, but usually product specs were communicated in ten minute meetings where the client or project manager dropped by and explained something. These ten minute meetings would rarely be as much as twice a week, so we really did code all day long.
I am now in a position where I'm still working on intranet applications, but I'm deeply entrenched in the corporation and its politics. I love the interactions with people, the brain storming, the give and take of ideas, the multitude of projects, the deeper knowledge of the business process, and the richer experience. There are days though when I have only ten minutes to work on each thing before I am pulled away by something else. The inefficiency of having to pick up things I've dropped off and frustration with distractions has me day dreaming of my former life when I looked forward to the distraction of a meeting instead of the distraction of actually writing code. It's no exaggeration to say that some days now are an inverse of how I used to divide my time between talking about work and doing work. (At heart I'm a DIY guy and although I logically know that talking about a project and developing a spec is work, I never feel like it's work.)
So I spend time thinking about these two different realities:
1. Working 90% on code, but missing out on the world of ideas, social interaction, and the business.
2. Working 10% on code, but feeling that little things get done slowly and big projects get put off for when "there's time for it".
And I love both worlds. I've been happy and satisfied in both, so rather than leave one for the other, I'm interested in having the structure to periodically transition. Most developers I know are stuck more in the second world than the first (I think I may be an extreme case on the days I'm fully in world two). In thinking over all of this I came up with the concept of going on project.
I am now in a position where I'm still working on intranet applications, but I'm deeply entrenched in the corporation and its politics. I love the interactions with people, the brain storming, the give and take of ideas, the multitude of projects, the deeper knowledge of the business process, and the richer experience. There are days though when I have only ten minutes to work on each thing before I am pulled away by something else. The inefficiency of having to pick up things I've dropped off and frustration with distractions has me day dreaming of my former life when I looked forward to the distraction of a meeting instead of the distraction of actually writing code. It's no exaggeration to say that some days now are an inverse of how I used to divide my time between talking about work and doing work. (At heart I'm a DIY guy and although I logically know that talking about a project and developing a spec is work, I never feel like it's work.)
So I spend time thinking about these two different realities:
1. Working 90% on code, but missing out on the world of ideas, social interaction, and the business.
2. Working 10% on code, but feeling that little things get done slowly and big projects get put off for when "there's time for it".
And I love both worlds. I've been happy and satisfied in both, so rather than leave one for the other, I'm interested in having the structure to periodically transition. Most developers I know are stuck more in the second world than the first (I think I may be an extreme case on the days I'm fully in world two). In thinking over all of this I came up with the concept of going on project.
On Project - the concept
What if corporations could offer developers the opportunity to go on project in the same way some go on sabatical? It can be so difficult for internal developers (as opposed to consultants) to free themselves of the beneficial, but distracting corporate world. A unique benefit of full time developers is that they can build a deep business knowledge, but that can come at the cost of being too entrenched in the business with less time to write code.
This works well for the day to day maintenance of an application ("keeping the lights on"), but it slows down new development. When the next big project comes along, try sending the developers on project. Communicate to everyone that these developers should only be contacted in emergencies (the developers probably have intimate knowledge of what they have built that cannot be substituted, so there may be circumstances that necessitate contacting them). This way they will be 100% focused on their current project.
In the same way that soldiers go off to war and the world carries on without them, but reserves their place for their return, these developers would be "on project" until they were ready to come home. At that time they would support the new project and live once again in the corporate world resuming their myriad responsibilities and communications.
An unfortunate circumstance of the current economic times means many corporations have empty desks, so it may even be feasible to assign them to desks in an unoccupied area. This would help everyone involved to respect the on project status of the developers and keep communication down to only the emergency messages.
Depending on what seems acceptable and necessary it might be a good idea to not retain the same phone numbers and email addresses for these developers while they are on project. However, Once a culture is developed of respecting the separation of these developers, then such drastic measures would not be necessary.
The time the developers are on project could be limited to a certain number of months or to fulfilling a certain specification. In keeping with the military metaphor, it might be interesting to limit it to time. The requirements of the project would be listed according to importance and the developers would complete as much as possible. Another interesting experiment with time could be to allow developers to set their own hours while on project as long as at the end of the week it totaled at least 40.
In this insulated environment it is likely that passionate developers will be more productive towards the project and also more innovative with technology. It also would offer an environment where the project team could naturally develop as a team. So called extreme programming can be a wonderful thing, but in my experience it cannot be forced and needs to develop naturally. This insulated environment would hopefully be conducive to that.
Overall though the real benefit is in being able to put developers into an environment where they can be 100% focused on a project. As a side benefit it helps test how well applications are self sufficient or reliant on the developers. If developers know they will be periodically going on project, then they have stronger motivation to build software that requires less maintenance.
This works well for the day to day maintenance of an application ("keeping the lights on"), but it slows down new development. When the next big project comes along, try sending the developers on project. Communicate to everyone that these developers should only be contacted in emergencies (the developers probably have intimate knowledge of what they have built that cannot be substituted, so there may be circumstances that necessitate contacting them). This way they will be 100% focused on their current project.
In the same way that soldiers go off to war and the world carries on without them, but reserves their place for their return, these developers would be "on project" until they were ready to come home. At that time they would support the new project and live once again in the corporate world resuming their myriad responsibilities and communications.
An unfortunate circumstance of the current economic times means many corporations have empty desks, so it may even be feasible to assign them to desks in an unoccupied area. This would help everyone involved to respect the on project status of the developers and keep communication down to only the emergency messages.
Depending on what seems acceptable and necessary it might be a good idea to not retain the same phone numbers and email addresses for these developers while they are on project. However, Once a culture is developed of respecting the separation of these developers, then such drastic measures would not be necessary.
The time the developers are on project could be limited to a certain number of months or to fulfilling a certain specification. In keeping with the military metaphor, it might be interesting to limit it to time. The requirements of the project would be listed according to importance and the developers would complete as much as possible. Another interesting experiment with time could be to allow developers to set their own hours while on project as long as at the end of the week it totaled at least 40.
In this insulated environment it is likely that passionate developers will be more productive towards the project and also more innovative with technology. It also would offer an environment where the project team could naturally develop as a team. So called extreme programming can be a wonderful thing, but in my experience it cannot be forced and needs to develop naturally. This insulated environment would hopefully be conducive to that.
Overall though the real benefit is in being able to put developers into an environment where they can be 100% focused on a project. As a side benefit it helps test how well applications are self sufficient or reliant on the developers. If developers know they will be periodically going on project, then they have stronger motivation to build software that requires less maintenance.
extreme programing
When I started my first large project in the corporate IT world (a project that had epic scope creep compared to anything else I've worked on), I worked with just one other programmer and a project manager. We actually functioned in a way that was similar to extreme programing, but I think it worked only because it developed naturally. Also as a side note, the situation worked will even when the project manager left and we were on our own.
Possibly a factor in how it worked was that I consciously decided to code in the style of the existing code. I tried to think like the programmer I was working with. With code there's usually multiple right ways to handle something, but often individuals favor one way. I tried to fit in which may have made all of the code easier to comprehend for both of us. I've only read a few articles on Extreme Programing and sometimes they hint at shared style, but I think this is an important part.
Still I ultimately believe that in the corporate landscape this is something you can not just create. You can set up the right kind of environment, but it needs to happen on its own.
Possibly a factor in how it worked was that I consciously decided to code in the style of the existing code. I tried to think like the programmer I was working with. With code there's usually multiple right ways to handle something, but often individuals favor one way. I tried to fit in which may have made all of the code easier to comprehend for both of us. I've only read a few articles on Extreme Programing and sometimes they hint at shared style, but I think this is an important part.
Still I ultimately believe that in the corporate landscape this is something you can not just create. You can set up the right kind of environment, but it needs to happen on its own.
Friday, March 13, 2009
I can eat glass but it hurts me.
Turns out there's more hype than reality to claims that unicode is fully supported in the current operating systems. We looked at OSX and Windows 2000 and the support was frustratingly close, but had issues. Looks like some of it has to do with default settings, but there were also some experiments we did that convinced me it's not so simple. We were looking into it because we were nervous when our DBAs mentioned going 100% unicode (might have just been a trial balloon on their part).
I can't blame any software company for not going fully unicode. After working with it for a few days and doing some experiments, I'm convinced of a PERL article by Gudio Flohr that said (my emphasis), "UTF-8 is fast to write but hard to read for applications. It is therefore not the worst for internal string representation but not far from that."
Oh and if you're not familiar with eating glass (and hence the title of this post), it's the string used to test for unicode compatibility, sort of like "lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" as placeholder text. If you ever try to support unicode, you'll understand why it's like trying to eat glass and not have it hurt you.
I can't blame any software company for not going fully unicode. After working with it for a few days and doing some experiments, I'm convinced of a PERL article by Gudio Flohr that said (my emphasis), "UTF-8 is fast to write but hard to read for applications. It is therefore not the worst for internal string representation but not far from that."
Oh and if you're not familiar with eating glass (and hence the title of this post), it's the string used to test for unicode compatibility, sort of like "lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" as placeholder text. If you ever try to support unicode, you'll understand why it's like trying to eat glass and not have it hurt you.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
The Optimistic Oracle
Every now and then we get the error "ORA-08177: can't serialize access for this transaction" in an application at work. It's usually on small bits of code that are AJAX like (I never write true AJAX and I'm not sure it happens all that often) and could be run frequently by the user by just clicking a button a few times. My assumption is that its an over zealous person double clicking and therefore double running the code that causes the problem. Anyway, I looked up the issue and just thought this was interesting:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/05-nov/o65asktom.html
You'll get this message whenever you try to update a row that has changed since your transaction began. (Note that Oracle tries to do this purely at the row level, but you may receive an ORA-01877 error even when the row you're interested in modifying hasn't been modified. The ORA-01877 may happen due to some other row(s) being modified on the block that contains your row.)
Oracle Database takes an optimistic approach to serialization: it gambles on the fact that the data your transaction wants to update won't be updated by any other transaction. This is typically the way it happens, and usually the gamble pays off, especially in quick transaction, OLTP-type systems. If no one else updates your data during your transaction, this isolation level, which will generally decrease concurrency in other systems, will provide the same degree of concurrency as it would without SERIALIZABLE transactions. The downside is that you may get the ORA-08177 error if the gamble doesn't pay off. If you think about it, however, it's worth the risk. If you're using SERIALIZABLE transaction, you shouldn't expect to update the same information as other transactions.
http://www.oracle.com/technology/oramag/oracle/05-nov/o65asktom.html
Crawling at Night: A Novel by Nani PowerMy review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a very dark book and though I enjoyed it, it was depressing. There are parts that are just simply beautiful though -- especially the ending, which is quite poetic if a bit trite in the framing. I think in the end it is a book about childhood and growing up which I did not realize at first.
View all my reviews.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Words & Lines
This sentence does not match
this one here on the second line
there is no shared rhythm
and not a bit of rhyme in them
not a bit of it is poetic
and only in this sense
are they all a set
but this sentence mentions you
and this one remembers our first kiss
and so there's beauty deep in
though don't confuse the words
with those things and give them any credit at all
this one here on the second line
there is no shared rhythm
and not a bit of rhyme in them
not a bit of it is poetic
and only in this sense
are they all a set
but this sentence mentions you
and this one remembers our first kiss
and so there's beauty deep in
though don't confuse the words
with those things and give them any credit at all
Modern Sonnet
Sonnet this is because author says so
impressive poem when you think on it
meter exact not one beat off, you know
the rhyme, the scheme, the rules, I’m sick of it
this unfamiliar beat requires much thought
and you poor reader in unfamiliar meter
I have tried to write a sonnet
so now you know
it is difficult
think of sonnets and how impressive they are
(don't think of this)
the rhyme must fall each time in place
the unfamiliar meter requires concentration
the reader cannot slack and day dream
I am finding this easy to write
but picture me slaving over each word
tearing my hair out as I try to think
of a phrase with an apt metaphor and rhythm
I recount the lines and there’s one too many
a crumpled manuscript falls to the floor
impressive poem when you think on it
meter exact not one beat off, you know
the rhyme, the scheme, the rules, I’m sick of it
this unfamiliar beat requires much thought
and you poor reader in unfamiliar meter
I have tried to write a sonnet
so now you know
it is difficult
think of sonnets and how impressive they are
(don't think of this)
the rhyme must fall each time in place
the unfamiliar meter requires concentration
the reader cannot slack and day dream
I am finding this easy to write
but picture me slaving over each word
tearing my hair out as I try to think
of a phrase with an apt metaphor and rhythm
I recount the lines and there’s one too many
a crumpled manuscript falls to the floor
creative person
I've decided to write short stories. No, that's not right written. I wrote some short stories and decided I'm going to write short stories. And something else. As I've mentioned to many people, I've had difficulty writing any descent poetry for the past couple years. It's not that I don't write at all, but I have lost the habit of it, so on the rare occasion that I pick up pen I write drivel.
I was at brunch recently with a group of friends and they gave me some great words of advice. In particular I was told I should consider myself a "creative person". Rather than "poet" which forces me to a certain medium or "artist" which implies certain standards and values, I am a creative person. I am freed now to simply create new and unusual stuff, no particular medium and no particular forum is required. Simply create.
Thanks Deb
I was at brunch recently with a group of friends and they gave me some great words of advice. In particular I was told I should consider myself a "creative person". Rather than "poet" which forces me to a certain medium or "artist" which implies certain standards and values, I am a creative person. I am freed now to simply create new and unusual stuff, no particular medium and no particular forum is required. Simply create.
Thanks Deb
Story: Writers Retreat
When I went as an unknown to the writer’s retreat it was not long before word traveled and I was approached. My status as one without status held a certain intrigue, so after breakfast and while on my way to the garden, two women stopped me. As round themselves as their old fashioned glasses and with words of excitement, ready for spring, much like their sun dresses, they asked what I was working on.
I’m not sure if I was bluntly honest because I was making an effort to be son in my writing or maybe I wanted to erect antisocial walls in which to set up my papers and desk in peace. But whatever the true reason, I did say to them, “I’m working on crap.”
Their eyes widened just a bit, but it takes only a few trips round the art circles to bring you to an artist who is shocking for the sake of being shocking. So maybe they wrote me off as that (though it would have meant more writing for them than they were used to).
I decided to fill the pause hovering between us with an explanation. “I always start with nothing, but I give it a chance. If I help it along and nurture it a bit maybe it gets some life. On rare occasions it is more than worthless and I share it with others. But in those cases I’m not sure if I’ve written it or if its written itself. I have trouble even remembering putting those words to paper. So maybe its true when I say that all I ever write is crap.”
And those two, they looked blankly at me. Wondering if the words had just been in my head but not spoken, I decided to leave. Maybe they knew I came here to be alone with my work. Like a couple that had hard times, we needed some quiet time together to find ourselves, our us.
But not today. I wished my fellow writers well and the offered me some “good inspirations.” I excused myself as I turned to leave.
I walked past the garden and looked at the little town below. Today I would take some time on my own. My relationship had some issues and I’d just realized another. As too often happens with too much time, I wasn’t appreciating it for what it was and what it was to me. I was trying to mold it to my idea of what it was. Tomorrow we’d become reacquainted. Today I needed just a little more time to myself.
I’m not sure if I was bluntly honest because I was making an effort to be son in my writing or maybe I wanted to erect antisocial walls in which to set up my papers and desk in peace. But whatever the true reason, I did say to them, “I’m working on crap.”
Their eyes widened just a bit, but it takes only a few trips round the art circles to bring you to an artist who is shocking for the sake of being shocking. So maybe they wrote me off as that (though it would have meant more writing for them than they were used to).
I decided to fill the pause hovering between us with an explanation. “I always start with nothing, but I give it a chance. If I help it along and nurture it a bit maybe it gets some life. On rare occasions it is more than worthless and I share it with others. But in those cases I’m not sure if I’ve written it or if its written itself. I have trouble even remembering putting those words to paper. So maybe its true when I say that all I ever write is crap.”
And those two, they looked blankly at me. Wondering if the words had just been in my head but not spoken, I decided to leave. Maybe they knew I came here to be alone with my work. Like a couple that had hard times, we needed some quiet time together to find ourselves, our us.
But not today. I wished my fellow writers well and the offered me some “good inspirations.” I excused myself as I turned to leave.
I walked past the garden and looked at the little town below. Today I would take some time on my own. My relationship had some issues and I’d just realized another. As too often happens with too much time, I wasn’t appreciating it for what it was and what it was to me. I was trying to mold it to my idea of what it was. Tomorrow we’d become reacquainted. Today I needed just a little more time to myself.
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