I’m heading out with a friend today to the National Arboretum to walk around and see how spring has progressed. We shall see, with the current overcast skies, if I can get anything decent on “film”, but it’ll be fun to try. The giant soft box in the sky, as it were.
Seriously, Hillary Clinton’s campaign is spamming House members with a Powerpoint. Seriously, that’s how you campaign? Demand people come kiss your feet and send them a Powerpoint?
It’s insulting, ignorant and just plain stupid. I’d like to believe she’s better than that, but I’ve yet to see any evidence.
[via Presentation Zen]
While voters in the California Democratic Presidential Primary backed Clinton by a 10-point margin, a new SurveyUSA poll shows that if given the chance to vote again, Californians would choose Barack Obama by a 6-point margin, 49%-43%.
That’s quite a swing. Electability my ass.
You know you are in the South when one of the fast-food joints is not only called Biscuitville, but also has pretty darn good fresh biscuits.
If anything summarizes the underlying differences between Barack Obama’s campaign and Hillary Clinton’s, it is this post from today’s Washington Post:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton spent Wednesday in D.C. trying to lobby uncommitted House superdelegates, but she asked them to come to her and had limited success persuading busy lawmakers to leave the Capitol. Obama showed up on their turf, walking into a packed chamber this morning in the middle of a vote.
Who sits on their thrown and expects the courtiers to come to them? Exactly.
What do you get if you combine three of the most talented musicians that the Lone Star State has ever produced? A band whose first album took nearly 20 years to get released.
In Texas music circles, The Flatlanders are more heard of than heard—at least until recently. Composed of Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock and Joe Ely, The Flatlanders, at least to me, represent the pinnacle of the Texas “country music” world, or what Joe Ely once called “country’s inlaws” when asked if they were part of the whole outlaw country movement that is best typified by Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash.
While their first recording session, in the famous Sun Studio, was a gem, it was not an appreciated gem in 1972. It got little to no radio play, and was only released on 8-track. Later, in 1991, Rounder Records, home to a diverse cast of talented musicians, released the sessions and people’s interest again grew. Since then, they’ve recorded some new music together, although due to the intervening years, I don’t think it’s ever been quite as cohesive as that first album. As their re-release was masterfully titled “More a Legend than a Band”.
From a later album, Now Again that I’ve had in my car this past week comes these tightly composed lyrics to “Waving My Heart Goodbye”:
Standing in the station I got no destination
I’m waving my heart goodbye
I’m walkin in the crowd and I’m talkin out loud
I’m telling myself dont cry
And Lord I’d rather not
forget what I forgot
but I guess I’m gonna have to try
Standing in the station I got no reservation
I’m waving my heart goodbye
I know it’s not to blame but it’s leavin’ just the same
and nobody ever asked it why
Standing in the rain
wonderin’ if the train
will stop before the tears will dry
Standing in the station its a sad situation
I’m waving my heart goodbye
It’s movin’ down the track and it ain’t lookin’ back
and I’m feeling like I could die
A train is made to roam
like a heart without a home
and I’m thinkin’ maybe so was I
I wonder will tomorrow come to hide the sorrow.
Will the sun forsake the sky?
And Lord I’d rather not forget what I forgot
but I guess Im gonna have to try
Standing in the station I got no destination
I’m waving my heart goodbye
Standing in the station
I’m waving my heart goodbye
I really do, you’re so sexy and svelte and say all the right things, but see, I’ve tried to install you on 2 servers now, and also on 2 different platforms under VMWare (Fusion and Server) and in both cases strange things have happened that cause you to abandon me. I’m sorry, but I think it’s time to go back to my first love: FreeBSD.
At work, I wanted to set up a spare blade in a chassis to be a general catch-all server for the lab. The blade in question is a HS40 blade for the IBM BladeCenter chassis. While it’s about 2 years old, it’s a 4-socket blade with 8 cores and 16GB RAM. Not exactly something to sneeze at. The distribution I chose to use is Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Server. I’ve generally had good luck with Ubuntu on the desktop, so I figured I’d give it a whirl on the server.
No go, unfortunately. For some reason, I run into a couple problems that I need to work out:
Strange, but a problem for tomorrow.
I am continually fascinated by how little many people use a debugger1 when they’re trying to understand their code. Today, I watched an otherwise very intelligent person stare at some Java code for 15-20 minutes trying, apparently, to mind-meld with the JVM and understand what went wrong and why he was getting a glorious NullPointerException, something I still find gloriously amusing.
“Why don’t you set a breakpoint and look at what’s going on right there?” I asked. You would think I was talking Aramaic. Even I, arch-hater of Java—and Eclipse—was able to divine the way to do this task and within 15 seconds we had a solution.
Learn to use the debugger, even if you’re working in a dead language like Java. It might not be a live object universe like Smalltalk, but it is 100x better than simply guessing.
1 If you’re cursed with either C or C++, invest your hard-earned money in TotalView if you have to do anything with multi-threaded code. It is unparalleled by any other debugger.
In reading an article about SciPy, the author has this gem:
The bottleneck in writing code isn’t in the writing of the code, it’s in understanding and conceptualising what needs to be done.
I mean gem quite literally. This, in the end, is the core difficulty that people seem not to grasp about writing good software. Writing lots of code is trivial; any monkey, or IDE can do it. The difficulty comes in the concept and more importantly the domain knowledge around the problem. For me, that’s 90% of the problem.
This is why I say languages don’t matter that much. Knowledge is language-insensitive.
Somehow, the idea that a potential President, or two, is busy having drinking contests to see who can slam down the most shots is not comforting:
“She loves to sit, throw ‘em back. So to me this is nothin’ new. We all hear about the story that she and John McCain actually had a shot contest, I think in the Ukraine or somewhere around the world. And she actually beat John McCain in a shot contest. She’s a girl from Illinois who likes to throw ‘em down with the rest of us.”
No, not like the rest of us. Like a 20 year old college student too stupid to know better. Shot contests are not a behavior that one wants in a leader. So once again, either she’s an alcoholic wanna-be sorority girl, or lying. So tell me, how’s that hole coming?
On a project I’m working on, we have a contract administrative person. This person, who is nice enough, has an odd tendency to share every bit of minutia with everyone. It’s like having a verbal Twitter stream.
When I was growing up in Texas, it was a dark, dark time for milk-derived food items. The “authorities” were telling everyone how evil butter was, and how you should use this wonderful almost-kinda-like-sorta-butter margerine, that was really little more than highly processed food “products”. Whipped cream was evil, but you should eat all the “Cool Whip” you want. I just don’t get it. Sadly, there are people who still think Cool Whip is the best thing to put on top of … well, probably some other mass-produced, engineered food product.
Now I’m not one to tell you that putting some artificially engineered vaguely creamy whipped product on top of your high-fructose corn syrup diabetic dessert disaster is a bad idea; it’s all just personal taste. But for the love of all that is creamy, pick up the damned spoon and don’t make someone put it in a damned can so you can spray it into your mouth when nobody is looking!
Or, better yet, pick up that whisk and a container of heavy cream and make your own “whipped topping” that will taste 10,000x better, and is also healthier for you. Your taste buds will thank you, as will the environment.
More than 200 economists, including four Nobel prize winners, signed a petition rejecting proposals by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain to offer a gas-tax holiday.
Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz, former Congressional Budget Office Director Alice Rivlin and 2007 Nobel winner Roger Myerson are among those who signed the letter calling proposals to temporarily lift the tax a bad idea. Another is Richard Schmalensee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was member of President George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.
The moratorium would mostly benefit oil companies while increasing the federal budget deficit and reducing funding for the government highway maintenance trust fund, the economists said.
So what does Hillary keep saying?
Obama’s opposition shows he is ``somebody who just doesn’t seem to understand that middle-class families are hurting,’’ Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson said yesterday.
Really? Says the woman who brought in $10M/year and hasn’t had to live on a middle-class salary in decades, if ever? What it demonstrates is Mrs. Clinton doesn’t understand basic elementary school math, much less high-school economics. Either that, or she’s a lying pandering politician. You pick.
Clinton yesterday dismissed economists’ objections to the plan.
Those damned facts keep getting in the way of pandering.
“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists,’’ she said in an interview on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “We would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively.’’
First off, nothing she could do as “President” could have an effect before she’s actually elected, so there’s the whole time travel problem. Then there’s the economic reality problem. Then there’s the pandering slime problem. And finally, there’s the whole basic math.
Are you lying, or are you stupid?
I’m not going to say what I think the “right” vote on this legislation is, but let’s look at what the basic summary is:
To prohibit the confiscation of a firearm during an emergency or major disaster if the possession of such firearm is not prohibited under Federal or State law.
Nothing too extreme in that it reaffirms an already existing right as understood by the courts. So how did our potential Presidential nominees vote?
| John McCain (R-AZ) | Yea |
| Barack Obama (D-IL) | Yea |
| Hillary Clinton (D-NY) | Nay |
Hmmm, that’s odd, as wasn’t Mrs. Clinton recently proclaiming herself the second coming of Annie Oakley? Apparently she’s had a major change of heart in the past year since that vote.
Cream cheese frosting brings a relentless cascade of drool to many people’s lips. It is, at its core, a very simple frosting and yet it is so often cloyingly sweet and bereft of the tang and substance that makes it so sublime. Here then, is my “ultimate” cream cheese frosting:
| 8oz | cream cheese, cold |
| 4Tbsp | butter, unsalted |
| 2Tbsp | powdered buttermilk (Sacco) |
| 3/4C | confectioner’s sugar (10x powdered) |
| 1tsp | vanilla |
The method is reasonably simple. Beat the cream cheese until lightened and slightly airy. Then, add the butter, beating to combine. Then, add the powdered buttermilk and mix.
Once that’s done, slowly add the confectioner’s sugar1 until combined and the texture begins to change. At that point, add the vanilla and mix in. Spread, eat, repeat.
1 This is to taste. I like it less sweet, some people use more.
It’s troubling to witness the fantasy world that Condoleezza Rice lives in:
The US still believes a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians is possible by the year’s end, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said.
Really? This year? After 7 years of doing little more than ignoring it with the sporadic break to throw some more gasoline on the fire, you think you’re just gonna tie a bow around this decades old problem and it’ll all be good? I mean, we know how successful this administration has been at foreign policy, if by foreign policy you mean lie, cheat and kick anyone who gets in your way.
US President George W Bush is hoping for a peace agreement by the time he leaves office in January.
I wanted to win the lottery this week, but strangely it didn’t happen. Dubya’s chances of brokering a peace deal are about the same as that of winning the lottery—without buying a ticket.
I’d like to go on record as announcing the demise of Blu-Ray. Now, I’m not saying that people won’t buy it, nor that it may exist for many years as a format. Even Laserdisc survived for over 20 years with 2% market share in the United States. What I mean by this incendiary comment is that Blu-Ray is irrelevant. This is true for several reason.
First, the average person simply has no reference for quality. Therefore quality doesn’t sell. VHS beat Beta, VHS beat Laserdisc. VHS sucks. It’s not that people couldn’t tell the difference if they wanted to, but that, with the exception of a miniscule number of videophiles, they simply don’t care. Does the picture move? Do the sounds go boom? Good enough. DVD didn’t win, in my estimation, primarily because of quality. It won because it was easy-to-use, lasted longer, and was less subject to damage by children than VHS was. In addition, it was a lot cheaper to manufacture. Also, it was “familiar” in form-factor to the Compact Disc.
Next, while there is a growing number of people with high definition televisions, it’s still a minority of the market, and even more, the number of people with a 1080p set is effectively zero as a percentage. Is it zero? No, but it’s a largely irrelevant number. A huge number of people are still using CRTs and aren’t likely to replace them until forced to, i.e. when they die.
Finally, the Internet. With the rise of broadband penetration into the United States—never mind the rest of the world that left us behind long ago—video-on-demand is becoming more and more of a reality. Looking at iTunes gives you an idea of where things are going in the home movie-watching world.
I’d also like to point out that movies are 100x more ripe for rental use than CDs, but the reasoning behind that is best saved for a later post.
I wish I could understand what was wrong with Hillary Clinton of late. It’s like at some point an otherwise intelligent person suddenly came down with a case of the crazies. Witness her latest episode:
In the face of criticism from a slate of economists who say her gas tax holiday plan would be ineffective or even harmful, Hillary Clinton said she wasn’t taking stock of their opinions and emphasized that this was a short-term fix that would primarily benefit long-distance drivers.
Not listening to over a hudnred economists who said that this was a (to paraphrase) “damned stupid idea”. First, Hillary tries to spin it as helping the middle class, but “long-distance drivers” sounds more like truckers than the “average” person.
Let’s say you commute 30 miles to work, each way, in a Chevy Malibu. Let’s further say that you get about 20MPG when doing this daily commute. That means, in a week, you’d do 300 miles. Add in another 50 miles for the weekend, and you’ve got 350 miles. Now, the federal gasoline tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. That means if you cut the entire thing, and if by some magical coincidence this was actually passed on to consumers, rather than pocketed, the average person I mention above would save a whopping $3.22 per week, or around $15 per month. Not exactly a lot of relief. No, this smells distinctly like the most base form of pandering. Oddly, it’s also what John McCain supports.
“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists,” Clinton told George Stephanopolous on ABC’s ‘This Week’ after he asked her to name a single economist supporting her plan. “If we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively.”
Not going to “put her lot in with economists”? Sounds way too much like George W. Bush who isn’t very familiar with the facts, nor does he have any interest in them. Prefers his “gut”. Well, Hillary, shooting from the hip and trusting your “gut” has gotten us into this mess, and I’d rather not do that. Economists can be an odd bunch, and sometimes it’s hard to separate politics from the theories, but there’s some basic fundamental pieces of supply and demand at work here.
When every ounce of gas is purchased at $3+/gallon, why do you think the cost will come down? Only more supply or less demand will bring it down. Otherwise, the 18.4 cents will go into the oil company pockets, or more likely, into those of those middle-east states who hate us.
Way to bring about change.
Today is the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby—the most elegant two minutes of racing in the world, surrounded by a week of parties—and as my mom grew up in Kentucky, and my parents met in Lexington, there’s a bit of nostalgia for the time I spent in the hills of Kentucky. While I grew up in Austin, it was typical for me to spend quite a few summer months with my mom’s family. Part of that family, though not genetically related, was a wonderfully kind woman named Janice.
Several years ago, Janice passed away. She had been my mom’s best friend for decades, and she had been like an extended aunt for my sister and I. One of the best memories I have of her is all the wonderful food and hospitality she extended to all of us. So, when I ran across a recipe for Bourbon Balls (some history), I couldn’t help but be reminded of hers. I have no idea if her recipe is “better” or “more authentic”, but the taste has lingered with me all these years.
So, in celebration of my heritage and the extended family I’ve been lucky enough to call my own for 35 years, today I’m making some Bourbon Balls and plan to have a fine Mint Julep.
When I get bored, I bake. This is the result:
A pineapple-buttermilk pie with a meringue top. Loosely based on this recipe.
A follow-up, once a taste test could be performed. First, a slice:
On the surface, no problems. While it might look like the meringue did not adhere, it did. So kudos there. The crust, on the other hand, is not what I was looking for. The taste is fine, but I simply didn’t blind bake it long enough, so it got a bit damp. Not soggy, but not what it should have been. The filling’s texture is a tiny bit looser than I would like, but I think this is likely due to weeping from the pineapple that makes it simply loosen up over time.
The taste? Yowza! The taste is very good. Total flashback pie. And, if I do say so myself, a darn near perfect meringue for my tastes. Structurally sound, but just barely so. Nothing that fights against the fork, which to me is a frustrating battle.
It speaks volumes about my personality when reviewing a document that the first thing I think of is: where the hell are the ligatures? The second thing is: why, oh why, must they use Arial?
I’m not speaking of the platonic love of family, nor the warm love of romance. What I refer to is instead the cold, steely glare of being loved “at work”. Perhaps it is my somewhat unique background and skill combination, but at my current employer—more than ever before—I feel entirely too loved. I want to be ignored sometimes; left to my own devices, and projects.
Instead, I am constantly asked to come in and resolve problems that others have been unable to. This invariably happens under immense time constraint and political pressure, thereby making it “extra fun”.
As people who know me will gleefully admit, I can be a pedant about certain things. Therefore I took great pleasure in this entry in the Q&A section of the Chicago Manual of Style website:
Q. Is it proper to define an acronym within an acronym or an abbreviation within an abbreviation? I am working on a document that contains an abbreviation that is really two other abbreviations smushed together with additional words tacked onto either side. And to top it all off, the overall abbreviation doesn’t even contain the first letter of every word in the other two abbreviations. They’ve dropped letters to make it shorter. Finally, if it is acceptable to do this sort of thing, how would I define the abbreviation or acronym on first use within the document if the two incorporated abbreviations were not previously defined in the document? Whew!
The answer was apropos:
A. Who wrote this document—Dr. Seuss? Yes, you may explain this funny animal parenthetically regardless of the lack of previous explanation. And maybe you should hire a cartoonist to illustrate.
Often I work in fields where not only are there entirely too many acronyms, but often the same TLA has multiple meanings depending on the context. This makes for all sorts of fun. All I can say is I’m happy for the acronym package for LaTeX
The difference between dogs and cats, in diary form.
Hillary Clinton: denier of basic math. Whether you like the rules of the race, they are the rules of the race and just because you’re losing the race (i.e. delegates) doesn’t mean you get a do over with new rules.
The first Chevy Volt has been released into the wild for testing. Very exciting, even if it looks like a dowdy Malibu.
If there is a downside to living in a 1960s high-rise, it is this: centrally provided heating and cooling. Now, don’t mistake this for someone else setting the temperature, but unfortunately someone else does decide when you flip from one to the other. I’m sure historically this hasn’t been a problem, but this year, it got warm early, and there’s nothing as tiring as coming home from a long trip to a home that’s 85F. The only solution is to open the windows. While this is only going to go on for a few more days (May 1st the building switches to chilled water), I decided to take action.
So, I bought a lovely Hunter Century stand fan. Not the cheapest thing out there, but everyone I’d talked to thought it was by far the quietest and most attractive. So, off to Amazon, and 2 days later I receive the fan. I put it together, and turns out it’s DOA. I tried everything, even pulling out the volt-meter. Looks like there’s a break in the winding of the motor.
I call Hunter’s 800-number customer support line, and after about 2 minutes they agree to send me out a new one free of charge. I just received that this morning, put it together, and … beautiful quiet breeze. Great customer service saved dissatisfaction once again. Now just to find out how I’m supposed to ship the bad one back to them!
Even a good friend, who grew up in Iowa, understands that Iowa is perhaps not the most representative state demographically of the rest of the country. Regardless, New Hampshire and Iowa have maintained their first-in-the-nation status, even as the world has changed. I’d like to propose a very simple way to solve this problem.
See, simple. It means each primary season, the order is different and a different set of states benefit from the early play. It’s consummately fair, which is exactly why it’s unlikely to happen.
Or, if you want to play the game in a slightly more interesting way. Order the states based on the percentage of total votes that went for the party’s main candidate in the last election. Get more vote percentages, get to hold your primary earlier.