Jars of clay May 25, 2008
Posted by babblefrog in Uncategorized.1 comment so far
We are jars of clay.
The jars are empty.
But the clay is enchanted.
Sick Society April 7, 2008
Posted by babblefrog in Politics.add a comment
Any society where the average person needs to hire an expert to tell him what is legal or illegal is a sick society.
Heroes of Economics and Finance March 16, 2008
Posted by babblefrog in Economics.add a comment
As we navigate our financial rafts through the dangerous waters of the 21st century world economy, I thought I would take a moment to recognize some of the heroes who are plotting the courses to financial independence on the other side. I have the utmost respect for these guys. If you listen to them with a discerning ear, you may make it through with your nest-egg intact.
Dr. Kurt Richenbacher
Dr. Marc Faber
Jim Rogers
Doug Casey
Bill Bonner
Jim Puplava
Golden Rules of software development March 16, 2008
Posted by babblefrog in Geek.add a comment
Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming
-Brian Kernighan
Just a few observations from watching some software development projects:
Change Increases Risk – Every time you want to make a change to something in the middle of the project, make sure that the benefit is worth the cost. The more critical the project, the more you need to manage change.
Follow your standards – If you have coding standards, documentation standards, commenting standards, standard processes and procedures: Follow them! Every time you think you can save time and effort by shortcutting any of this, it will turn out to cost you double (or more) time in the end.
Use the tools and techniques you know – Trying out new technologies, tools, or techniques should be done in small, non-critical projects. Doing this is large, critical projects will increase risk, and make the project take longer.
Complexity is risky - If you have a choice between doing something a simple way, or a complex way, choose simple every time.
Test, test, test - Unit test everything. That one small change that won’t effect anything else, will ultimately come back to bite you.
Catch exceptions – each one is a bug you didn’t know was there. Check return codes – The one you don’t check will turn into a bug a thousand lines away in a different module.
Keep maintenance in mind – Make the code simple and easy to understand, and comment anything not immediately obvious. After 6 months, even you won’t know why you wrote it the way you did, so how are the maintainers supposed to know?
Use popular languages and tools – Your project may be a perfect match for that new language Babel-E++, but how the heck are you going to be able to hire programmers to maintain it?
Do peer reviews – Review requirements, architecture and design documents, and code. A second set of eyes can flush out errors and fill holes that the original author missed.
Hire good people – Experience counts, and experience with a broad range of technologies is much better than focused experience with the one technology you happen to be using now.
No way out November 11, 2006
Posted by babblefrog in Politics.add a comment
Now that the election is over, our thoughts turn to the new Democratic majorities in congress, and what they can do about the ongoing fiasco in Iraq.
I can see four ways forward from here, and none of them are very pretty:
1. Reinstating the draft, and sending enough troops in to pacify the country.
This seems like it would be political suicide for either party to suggest. It might be a way to stop the hemmoraging, though. This would probably lead to a long term commitment of troops, at enormous expense. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this is the recommendation of the Iraq Study Commission.
2. Overthrow the elected government, and find a strongman who will impose order
I feel like I’m having cold-war flashbacks. This might “work”, for some value of work, lowering our popularity in all of Europe, the Arab world, and the Muslim world. And put the lie to the whole bit about bringing freedom and democracy to the heart of the middle east.
3. Start bringing the boys home, and leave the Iraqis to their own fate
The chaos that would follow would be ugly, but this might be our best option. I’m betting we are going to lose this war eventually anyway, and an immediate pullout would limit the losses.
4. Continue to muddle along the way we are.
I suspect that this is the most likely scenario. Politicians don’t like to make hard choices, and any of the other scenarios are going to be just too hard. I think the outcome is still going to be the same, though. Many thousands more in American casualties, Iraqi casualties running into the millions, and a slow wearing down of the American will to fight. The eventual pullout will be a replay of leaving Saigon in 1975. And Iraq will have to find its own way forward.
You can’t save them up and use them later November 9, 2006
Posted by babblefrog in Geek.1 comment so far
I’m talking about CPU cycles. Odds are good that most of yours are going to waste.
So what should you be doing with them? Donating them to charity, of course! There are lots of organizations doing research that need more computing power than they have. You can help by running some of their research in the background on your computers.
I tend to lean towards donating for medical research, but there are a lot of options out there. Installing and setting up is easy. Take a few minutes, and check out these websites:
Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing
There are projects that are working on curing some of the worst human diseases, and they could use your help.
