tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1585443652769418622024-02-06T21:41:32.643-07:00Russell BatemanRussell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.comBlogger89125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-3695566671557925832013-05-22T08:39:00.002-06:002013-07-17T22:50:44.061-06:00Refreshing Mint makes the breath sweeter!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc6eFd7eOh5zgU-wWojMzr7uoLzio4gmdVkV6QewcNg0uJYCorRYGZVlOt2YCh79k9o4GkCtu9wwZicbPSDMByvkjyB89ER2aw2WWwoXbGD4WNvLFKLadi1g443fNDWzMKExMYK-JM_pg/s1600/mint-logo.png" imageanchor="1" ><img align="left" hspace="10" vspace="10" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc6eFd7eOh5zgU-wWojMzr7uoLzio4gmdVkV6QewcNg0uJYCorRYGZVlOt2YCh79k9o4GkCtu9wwZicbPSDMByvkjyB89ER2aw2WWwoXbGD4WNvLFKLadi1g443fNDWzMKExMYK-JM_pg/s320/mint-logo.png" /></a><span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">Now that Canonical has totally lost their way and turned the Ubuntu desktop into a pig's breakfast of inutility and ugliness (and that's only the beginning of their sins against a platform they thought had reached too great a height and decided to destroy), I've gone looking for something better and think I've found it...
<br />
<br />
...in <a href="http://www.linixmint.com">Linux Mint</a>. I've chosen (a bit arbitrarily since I haven't really experienced Mate) Cinnamon as the UI for my desktop.
<br />
<br />
So far, I've been very pleased with everything. Because of evolution in how Mint implements <i>/etc/resolv.conf</i>, I'm unable to get my employer's VPN running, but I've got other hardware still running Ubuntu Maverick and can use that until I'm able to deal with the problem. All my other productivity software is loaded and I've been running for a couple of days quite pleased so far. The installation wasn't too bad after over-coming a problem with <a href="http://www.javahotchocolate.com/notes/mint.html">the fact that I sit behind my employer's proxy</a>.
<br />
<br />
What's nice is to come into a working desktop that appears unlikely to freeze the way my Ubuntu Precise desktop has almost since the day I installed it last December. Since then, I've had a couple of experiences with that platform and they've been mostly negative. I write software for a living; I don't know what's behind Canonical's insistence upon the Unity desktop nor some of the other changes they've made, but it's not helpful to my day-to-day productivity. Lucid/Maverick worked fine for me; Natty/Oneiric were pretty much just plain broken and Precise/Quantal were more stable, but demonstrated that Canonical was not going to give choices back to us.
<br />
<br />
Linux Mint is pretty much a "corrected" Ubuntu and, I hope, the awaited heir to Ubuntu's long-time superiority in the Linux world. Mint is apparently the fourth most popular desktop for home use (behind Windows, Macintosh and presumably Ubuntu, but that's changing fast by all reports). Actually, among Linux desktops, Mint is now the premier download.
<br />
<br />
I still run and am completely pleased with Precise server for all my server needs. I don't forsee changing that until Canonical releases their next LTS platform which, I hope, will continue to be dynamite.
<br />
<br />
I'll move to Mint at home as soon as I can juggle my hardware. Then, I'll move my web server from Lucid desktop to Precise and put the box over by my ESXi hardware. Fun times!
</span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-39811511545483231862013-03-28T06:47:00.000-06:002013-07-17T22:49:39.487-06:00A trip down memory lane...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwVWmJURUeW5BDZ_mhpo7Y0g5nMCwps454heIkFLnNIY6cXmb5Ec9p9TewN0u_FEC8iZN9nMi44wQtlZjCuEd1Q-jqlzotECN8N3rcQdC_6kk3CKkCcoh3HjgMyQnDcppyDZRvbMSJBcE/s1600/t_memory-lane.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img width="400px" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwVWmJURUeW5BDZ_mhpo7Y0g5nMCwps454heIkFLnNIY6cXmb5Ec9p9TewN0u_FEC8iZN9nMi44wQtlZjCuEd1Q-jqlzotECN8N3rcQdC_6kk3CKkCcoh3HjgMyQnDcppyDZRvbMSJBcE/s320/t_memory-lane.jpg" /></a>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">
The other day, colleagues at the water fountain (virtually anyway, it was probably on the way back to the office from lunch) were reminiscing about CS classes back in school.
<br />
<br />
Craning my neck last evening at one point from what I was doing at my computer, I noticed that I've got precious few books left. I've kept these because they may still have relevance (or maybe not in some cases like <i>Numerical Recipes in C</i> and the other <i>Algorithms</i> book).
<br />
<br />
Still, it's hard to throw away books that cost me $50 or better 30 years ago because that was a veritable fortune in the day.
</span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-38591932389729396422013-03-19T10:44:00.002-06:002013-03-19T10:51:04.458-06:00Douce France, ...<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans serif"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEr4n2bK5Ja_hkJUMQx_E33PkK-ZTNu6snhe3Z0WL6Q6qPGVX97Karg7W8mSnYMHqTtIFXEbwGbXiUfxnCgTX7WEhluOCagE_u-D35lSrMajjebO3Mc21ifppg4zCgHqxep50_JdcvglM/s1600/douce-normandie.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" align="right" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEr4n2bK5Ja_hkJUMQx_E33PkK-ZTNu6snhe3Z0WL6Q6qPGVX97Karg7W8mSnYMHqTtIFXEbwGbXiUfxnCgTX7WEhluOCagE_u-D35lSrMajjebO3Mc21ifppg4zCgHqxep50_JdcvglM/s320/douce-normandie.jpg" /></a>
...pays de mon enfance,<br />
Bercée de tendre insouciance,<br />
Je t'ai gardée dans mon cœur !<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Charles Trenet...<br />
...et moi (bien évidemment).
</span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-50373472909508542412013-02-11T14:41:00.000-07:002013-02-11T14:41:07.386-07:00What's cool? Happy birthday to my father!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaRjGlUKrCEoeyDgJXge7rS025SKZoXITbYKkXEyOhDjG5B6Gq0AkHDZt1dtDj1yZOu3erbgpq_DuZcv8I4QQ03GBEwXogD7VVn_N95zQvukZNdI5J1fCrxbU0Lu47fVm50MZ3Tv680g8/s1600/atlas-friendship-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right;margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" width="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaRjGlUKrCEoeyDgJXge7rS025SKZoXITbYKkXEyOhDjG5B6Gq0AkHDZt1dtDj1yZOu3erbgpq_DuZcv8I4QQ03GBEwXogD7VVn_N95zQvukZNdI5J1fCrxbU0Lu47fVm50MZ3Tv680g8/s400/atlas-friendship-7.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">
When I was in my 20s, I worked on computer software to translate from one language to another. It was pretty fun stuff I thought, very hard to show you now how much fun it was as there's nothing left of it—and no pictures. Besides, it didn't really ever work.<br />
<br />
But when my father was in his 20s, he was an electrical engineer and worked at the General Dynamics Corporation in San Diego with other engineers to build this rocket. This is a picture of it taking astronaut John Glenn, who passed away last year, into the first manned orbit by an American (1962).<br />
<br />
I probably don't need to point out which is a cooler thing to have done in one's 20s.
</span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-78424531151566259992013-02-01T09:40:00.000-07:002013-02-01T09:41:56.823-07:00Fire the Ubuntu staff!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltiu5S5bmeGBSIAksZtMMdjDGhIa-lK3dkCtS7Vgs1Xfh9bdw2F0lrbm75T7dpjsiJGPZTqpba1uXRdoR8iO2g3gqSinsj9a4cuF9-97xH0gz4imgJr9-af-rMVnglP1nSJ3WfHFw1ng/s1600/ubuntu-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" width="100" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjltiu5S5bmeGBSIAksZtMMdjDGhIa-lK3dkCtS7Vgs1Xfh9bdw2F0lrbm75T7dpjsiJGPZTqpba1uXRdoR8iO2g3gqSinsj9a4cuF9-97xH0gz4imgJr9-af-rMVnglP1nSJ3WfHFw1ng/s400/ubuntu-logo.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">Here's an idea: Why don't we just fire the entire Ubuntu staff? That way, they could go off to the Macintosh feeling guilt-free. It's a good home and a stable environment unlike the pig's breakfast they've made of Ubuntu Linux.<br />
<br />
Or, we could be lenient. We could administer an oath to those who wish to remain:<br />
<br />
"I hearby swear that I will do my best to disentangle Ubuntu from any notion of Unity, restore Gnome goodness, return Ubuntu to stability and resist with my very life, if necessary, any return to anything approximating Unity. I will restore to full working status and option all software that worked prior to Ubuntu Oneiric.<br />
<br />
"I recognize that Ubuntu is a desktop platform used by many, but most especially, by software engineers whose delight is accomplishing productive work with the minimum of intrusion by experimental fantasies in unproven and cumbersome graphical user interfaces.<br />
<br />
"I will furthermore return the window title bar controls to the right side leaving their relocation on the left side merely as an option and I will resist all further 'Macintosh wanna-be inspiration or temptation'.<br />
<br />
</span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifOrKuXaQg8NMPg0N4QZ92uPMbYyOvLPD4FA-1dScy6-raz6ceguIQ6Fel8k3mX63dIYe42_aOZ3M-3mFTnjv37MpQo2jQ0OEKYhKDtLki78ZHisRQbvMiO4ZECFwhSPpxmbFyw4xkT0s/s1600/linux-mint.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifOrKuXaQg8NMPg0N4QZ92uPMbYyOvLPD4FA-1dScy6-raz6ceguIQ6Fel8k3mX63dIYe42_aOZ3M-3mFTnjv37MpQo2jQ0OEKYhKDtLki78ZHisRQbvMiO4ZECFwhSPpxmbFyw4xkT0s/s400/linux-mint.png" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">"So swear I for myself and for all my descendants." <br />
<br />
Otherwise, it's off to Mint for me.
</span>
Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-61241783123353622202013-01-19T10:06:00.000-07:002013-01-19T10:42:52.435-07:00A boy and his erector set<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcZPNNCh3CrN_BIrSKJYNp75udI4X-zYSG87zrXr40W8auY_vA2OkUrJ8nh19lQz2ZbPsZymedeF1fYQnGdqsHkiS-jgpLiDvsfW2JYnYNrGggpIvVU22ItIWfov0T2QZB6rJv-61J15s/s1600/erector-set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="194" width="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcZPNNCh3CrN_BIrSKJYNp75udI4X-zYSG87zrXr40W8auY_vA2OkUrJ8nh19lQz2ZbPsZymedeF1fYQnGdqsHkiS-jgpLiDvsfW2JYnYNrGggpIvVU22ItIWfov0T2QZB6rJv-61J15s/s400/erector-set.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">This week parts of my fifth erector set have been arriving. To the right here is a picture I found out there of my first set, which I dearly loved of everything Santa Claus ever brought me and with which I built all sorts of cool things. It was a pretty dangerous toy: if you put your finger into the gearing of the motor power take-off box, you'd get it seriously shredded.
</p>
<p>
You can't buy such a thing anymore, but the whole concept has been handily replaced by a different sort of erector set. I'm on my fourth, it's called parts for a computer.
</p>
<p>
Indeed, as soon as the last piece, the case, arrives next week, I'll assemble a new computer designed to replace my web server (eventually) and serve as a platform for me to cement my understanding of managing a professional data center using VMware vSphere to manage the virtual machines (VMs) I will create. Each VM is in fact a virtual computer host that behaves as if separate from its siblings. So, it's like one great big computer masquerading as several, separate ones. I'll also be using software called Chef to manage what ultimately populates any VM I create with software. It's more or less a tiny part of what I do at work.
</p>
<p>
For example, my brother has such a set-up in which he uses separate VMs to be 1) a PBX (telephone exchange system), 2) a network router, 3) and one or two other things at home.
</p>
<p>
My usage will be 1) my primary web server, 2) one or more applications running on Tomcat on separate VMs and 3) a set of MongoDB database replica nodes consumed by those applications.
</p>
<p>
Below, in conch-shell order beginning with the big, black power supply at top left: DVD drive, two 2Tb hard disks that will be put into a RAID 0 configuration (if VMware will support that), the motherboard, the CPU fan, the Intel i5-2500K quad core CPU clocked at a stock 3.3GHz, a scrap of metal to put over the connectors on the back plane, two 8Gb DIMM memory sticks, an orange SATA cable, two black SATA cables, a small package of screws and a utility knife (for opening packages or for my wrists if things don't go well—all depending).
</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHYv2R1CUy-eIv7S2kUFfhRrOl2dF_uJ4ffwJ1RkJZRhwTbqMruP7dmkGHQAUiwGfcUnz5WtHP4OISGzl-JIF-LxyLMGkK82Mp1uqH7wizrHQDiKsTw_HNhQhuwhCQZn4oJPctUIBrZnw/s1600/t_mobo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="300" width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHYv2R1CUy-eIv7S2kUFfhRrOl2dF_uJ4ffwJ1RkJZRhwTbqMruP7dmkGHQAUiwGfcUnz5WtHP4OISGzl-JIF-LxyLMGkK82Mp1uqH7wizrHQDiKsTw_HNhQhuwhCQZn4oJPctUIBrZnw/s400/t_mobo.jpg" /></a></div>
<p>
Should be fun.
</p>
</span>
Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-6447170172064370032013-01-10T18:29:00.001-07:002013-07-17T22:54:07.052-06:00A new era begins...<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif"> I began putting a period to a blessed life <i>pre-Unity</i> today at work as I relegated my primary development host, running Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat, to second fiddle while I picked up and am now playing (identical HP hardware) on Precise Pangolin with Unity (12.04LTS).
</p>
<p>
I <u>really do not like</u> Unity as compared to Gnome. I develop software and I can't see how using Unity helps me do that better than using Gnome. Mostly, it gets in my way.
</p>
<p>
And chasing Unity off and restoring Gnome isn't fun and easy, nor was it altogether successful the time I tried it last November. I don't just want Gnome, mind you, I want it exactly how I've had it and I could not reach that point in the few hours I allotted to the experiment. I also don't want to have to hack every new OS I install, so before fleeing Ubuntu altogether, I'm going to see how badly my productivity is afflicted by Unity.
</p>
<p>
So here I am with about half my crucial development tools running on the newer operating system and the ones that don't still running under Maverick. Principally, I can't get Remmina to work and I need it to replace <tt>tsclient</tt>. I'm also struggling with Thunderbird in some ways. Today I finally got it set up to do my HP mail, but then it refused to do my personal mail.
</p>
<p>
The reason for this bothersome detour from productive life? Lucid Lynx LTS expires next April. Maverick already expired last April.
</p>
<p>
At home I'm going to be undertaking much the same journey if with less angst about how fast and well it works.
</p>
</span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-27262225412038371712012-12-03T11:13:00.000-07:002013-01-10T18:30:17.219-07:00A good office sometimes...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizqAsZytTcCCOhD0ghDS5_0Dx3XtoYu8k1mOmZQODzo9sNawZVOBer6HIsybrrKWb7dbTN14833HaOVScBSHUFMPOBlUS_aKuNP8HI6XxKfeRz4qTVBSzKFVkS-JlxMvNEtaF48O9XEts/s1600/office-window.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizqAsZytTcCCOhD0ghDS5_0Dx3XtoYu8k1mOmZQODzo9sNawZVOBer6HIsybrrKWb7dbTN14833HaOVScBSHUFMPOBlUS_aKuNP8HI6XxKfeRz4qTVBSzKFVkS-JlxMvNEtaF48O9XEts/s400/office-window.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">...or sort of: it's all relative, <i>n'est-ce pas ?</i>
<br /><br />
Not since Novell have I enjoyed a view like this one. Of course, there I had a hard-walled office all to myself whereas here I live in cubicle hell. Here you see I-15, the cities of American Fork and Pleasant Grove as well as Mount Timpanogos.
<br /><br />
In the dark foreground is my visitor chair and a couch. As my manager shares this cube with me, we have our (small) team meetings here.
</span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-61289200240466981022012-11-24T10:29:00.000-07:002012-11-26T06:12:57.824-07:00PBS Fund-raisers...<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Ariel, sans-serif">I see PBS has gone back into fund-raising mode again.
<p>
Is there anything in the universe more incongruous than a PBS fund-raising drive?
</p>
<p>
What's on PBS during fund-raisers? Shows that are never part of normal programming. Cheap, popular psychology by two-bit therapists. How-to-get-rich pitches by speakers whose fortunes come from writing books and giving pitches on how to get rich. Opinionated, anti-fat nazis who just want to tell you how you should eat food that no one else eats. Chefs that can't cook their way out of a paper bag that's been soaking in warm water for 24 hours.
</p>
<p>
Really? PBS fund-raisers drive die-hard PBS fans such as myself to discover "normal" television or turn away to put more time into books (where more of my time is deserved anyway). While I'm gone, save for maybe a few quarters tossed over my shoulder on the way, I'm not there contributing. In fact, most of the time I confess I don't contribute out of disgust with what they're doing.
</p>
<p>
In years past, I was lured into giving by the broadcast of a few great Jeremy Brett's <i>Sherlock Holmes</i> portrayals, a marathon run of <i>Fawlty Towers</i>, the promise of a mug embellished with <i>PBS Mystery</i>, <i>Masterpiece Theatre</i> or <i>The MacNeal-Lehrer Newshour</i>.
</p>
<p>
Fund-raisers used to be a time where the local PBS station's personnel made a connection with the local populace. Now it's all robotic broadcasts done by paid, D-rank speakers and actors nobody knows.
</p>
<p>
There must be an audience for the utter rubbish PBS puts on now, but it clearly isn't the people who watch PBS. I can imagine that someone unaware, for PBS fund-raisers aren't publicized, discovers this programming, likes it, contributes his bit resolving to adopt PBS only to find a few days later that PBS doesn't continue to broadcast this sort of thing. Which means that the next time this person sees it, he simply keeps on surfing.
</p>
</span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-85538039086584195072012-11-04T10:53:00.000-07:002012-11-04T11:03:17.675-07:00Randomly firing smoke detectors<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">This has been happening to me. I don't mean the beep every couple of minutes indicating the need for battery replacement, but the whole (linked) system going off. I did some research and found some interesting points that likely explain my problem.
</span>
<br /><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;"> How do smoke detectors work?</span></h3>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
There is a source of beta particle radiation (yes, smoke detectors are weakly radioactive) that continually releases particles across a small space to be picked up by a detector. As soon as the stream of particles or even part of the stream is interrupted, the alarm goes off.
<br /><br />
Systems that meet modern codes are interconnected both to 120v power and also linked by an additional electrical wire such that when once detector finds reason to go off, every detector in the system goes off in sympathy. This results in a whole house protection that is very effective.
<br /><br />
Even though a modern smoke-detection system is wired to sector current and powered by it, each detector has a back-up battery much as radio alarm clocks and other devices for the "convenience" that this provides during power outages. The convenience of this in the case of a smoke detector is simply that if the power's off or out and your house begins to burn, one or more detectors will presumably sense it and sound the alarm.
</span>
</div>
<br /><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
What can set off smoke detectors? </span></h3>
<ol><span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
<li> Low battery. </li>
<li> Condensation. </li>
<li> Change in temperature, especially from warm to cold, probably because of condensation. </li>
<li> Cooking smoke or vapors. </li>
<li> Dust particles. </li>
<li> Tiny insects and arachnids.* </li>
</span></ol>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
* This appears to have been my case because of the randomness of occurrence coupled with the random length, but short duration of the alarm. My guess is that the vibration of the alarm is annoying enough to chase the little beasties out of the hole in the detector sensor mechanism.
</span></div>
<br /><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
Is it possible to diagnose the exact cause? </span></h3>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
If the alarm duration permits it, running around examining each detector will reveal, for most brands, that the offending detector is showing a red LED light instead of the usual, continual green one. This is the detector causing the rest to fire off.
</span>
</div>
<br /><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
When should I change smoke detector batteries? </span></h3>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
Other than the obvious need to do this when the detector begins to complain by beeping every few minutes, many advise spending an hour each New Year's Day or the evening before your locale goes on or off Daylight Savings Time. Detector batteries usually last a good year making this a good policy.
<br /><br />
I personally do not replace the batteries until I hear the detector beep. I find that my batteries are lasting several years.
</span></div>
<br /><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
Do smoke detectors go bad? </span></h3>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
Yes. However, people frequently replace them unnecessarily with new ones after 1) a family member or acquaintance experiences a catastrophic fire, 2) unexplained failure creates mistrust. Still, better safe than sorry.
</span>
</div>
<br /><br />
<h3>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
Why is the need to replace batteries only detected at night? </span></h3>
<div style="margin-left: 40px;">
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
This probably lies in the realm of urban lore. No one seems to know why, but it is widely reported. Many also report that it drives them nuts while other inhabitants of the household seem to be able to sleep through the beeping.
</span>
</div>
Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-24321203789598208362012-10-19T08:36:00.000-06:002012-10-19T09:02:36.467-06:00Page numbers in electronic media<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">Despite what I said recently to my mother about there being no page number handling in Kindle, there is a <span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Menu</span> function on Kindle, <span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Go to Page</span>,
that suggests that if you know the paperspace number of a book's page,
you can get there. This has very obvious limited utility and I've never
done it.<br /><br />
It's just that while you're reading, you don't see page numbers and to
figure out what page you're on is probably (I think completely)
impossible. All you have is the percent indication of how far you are
through the text. I have two Kindles myself and when I synchronize the
one to the web, then pick up the other and synchronize to the last page
read, it doesn't say what page or anything.</span>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;"><br /><br />
Perhaps we'll lose our "page number centricity" in favor of percent as electronic media becomes more widespread and dominant.</span>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;"><br /><br />
(Does this not establish "chapter and verse" as a superior system of
organization for books? Perhaps that's a little too stuffy for novels,
eh?)</span>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;"><br /><br />
An aside...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">For instance, I noticed that the precursor indications that Asher (in </span>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;"><i>My Name Is Asher Lev</i>, one of the greatest English novels ever written that I've just read for the third time)
would paint the three-way conflict between his mother, father and
himself came more overtly predicted at 73%, 80% and 87%.
I'll forget these numbers within a few days, I'm sure. Why was I watching for this? Because the <i>dénouement</i> at the end of this book is one of the most poignant in literature.<br /><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQwWo_VEGYtOv_9sMKZOROJ3oHl9Y-7B_mXhjHSkKe2BGZ5vWg2XHjkDUt9CznbdBZ9I67-hQ7wapCb365JfPD6Y5SzmqyM_0Ahjh1NwcYhA3wIdSBCMS0OWfefPc3ieSCoAEeFWfzQ-U/s1600/asherlev.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQwWo_VEGYtOv_9sMKZOROJ3oHl9Y-7B_mXhjHSkKe2BGZ5vWg2XHjkDUt9CznbdBZ9I67-hQ7wapCb365JfPD6Y5SzmqyM_0Ahjh1NwcYhA3wIdSBCMS0OWfefPc3ieSCoAEeFWfzQ-U/s1600/asherlev.jpg" /></a>
Even further aside...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">And, I'm back in paperspace now as I can't justify spending
money on a book for Kindle I already own in paper. Thus I'm reading (again after having read it 20 years ago when it appeared) the sequel </span>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;"><i>The Gift of Asher Lev</i>. I've had a couple of paper copies of <i>My Name</i>...,
but the last copy I had, I loaned to someone in a hospital who, when I
later attempted to retrieve it, clearly had the impression that I'd
given it to him so, I made no issue of it.<br /><br />
Back to the farm...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">If you think a lack of page numbers is somehow hampering, imaging reading </span>
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;"><i>Atlas Shrugged</i>
which is 1200 pages. On the other hand, maybe I read it (last spring)
precisely because on the Kindle, I had no idea it was anywhere near that
long (although I totally knew it was on the same order as <i>War and Peace</i> which can be in excess of 1400 pages).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">Now, I can see that this post has completely deviated from the original subject. Could that be for any other reason than that there's precious little more important than reading? Music and literature: nothing can dethrone these which reign supreme over leisure (and beyond). </span>
Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-17413322331239449682012-10-18T09:09:00.001-06:002012-10-18T09:12:30.415-06:00Test first, code later...<div style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">
Another day, more proof that the first stroke of your finger in <tt>vim</tt> or whatever your favorite editor is, should begin with <code>public class ...Test</code>.
</div>
<div style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 20px;">
I prove this to myself altogether too often.
</div>
<div style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 20px;">
Whatever, I've never been on a project, even one with which I have so much to do as the present, for which there are myriad tests missing almost from day one.
</div>
<div style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 20px;">
Today, I went to tackle some "clean-up tasks" postulated in a distant sprint planning as something we'd need to get around to. Circumstances made it so that I needed to pitch in to help an area that's not ordinarily mine. So, I immediately set about adding tests for the little details I figured a couple of months back might need particular attention.
</div>
<div style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 20px;">
As the French say, <i>Ben, voyons !</i> And how! Handling of nearly every one of the little details was either absent or seriously compromised. The test bits, which I wrote in JUnit using Mockito to eliminate any connection to wire, database or stuff that would defeat total automatization, were tiny, but they did the trick. In the space of probably two hours, I had the tests written and the implementation fixed.
</div>
<div style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 20px;">
For this, I can only thank my old friends from Brisbane, Dean Povey and David Leonard, for teaching me the maxim that is the title of this post. I'm only a deacon in this church of writing tests first, coding afterward, but I hope to become an ordained priest before much longer.</div>
Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-74787767222194220762012-06-29T08:17:00.006-06:002012-06-29T08:36:55.538-06:00Patriotism in an era of repression<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans serif;">When I think, as I often do, about what distinguishes modern Americans from those who were willing to take up arms in defense of their personal and political liberties all those generations ago, I don't see many parallels remaining.<br /><br />Two major distinctions exist in my mind.<br /><br />First, it's not an us-them sort of thing. I realize that many colonists saw themselves as English subjects, but it's obvious that the British parliament's and King's unfeeling arrogance alienated enough thinking people to spark a nascent nation (no pleonasm intended here, but...). And, you had to be a thinking, indeed radical person for the most part even to find yourself in colonial America in the first place.<br /><br />It's hard to raise up opposition against tyranny when the tyrants are you.<br /><br />Second, today so many just aren't citizens anymore.<br /><br />I think a couple of hundred years of assumptions largely fulfilled along with a <i>Zeitgeist</i> of democracy people have bought into whereby nations are becoming increasingly democratic (not sure this is even really, deeply true, but it's a different debate) have put Americans to sleep about what it means to be a citizen and the real threat that any government at all poses to liberty. In short, people assume that governments are legitimate to the point that individual freedoms are purely secondary considerations. Worse still, Americans now believe as long have their French counterparts, that it's government and not Nature or God that grants rights and liberty.<br /><br />Immigrating peoples, especially Hispanics, come from a backdrop of appalling political servitude and a <i>Crô Magnon</i>-era understanding of themselves in the face of government, and do not expect liberty in the way our Founding Fathers thought both natural and crucial. I mean no slight: many immigrants come here for economic prosperity and personal safety for their families. I'm down with that as a totally honorable reason to come. Our distant ancestors, however, came because to stay home would have meant death or at least sore persecution for their religious beliefs. Those are reasons for creating an America of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.<br /><br />In summary, I don't see America irrigating the roots of the tree of Liberty with its citizens' blood ever again. Instead, what I see coming is strife and bloodshed unassociated with the lofty goal of "putting things aright" in a proper revolution.<br /></span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-46779941022823317572012-05-27T08:54:00.001-06:002012-05-27T09:00:25.623-06:00The best laid plans...<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">There were so many little things to get done yesterday so that Monday could start with a crash and a bang to lead us to the point of priming at the duplex.
<br /><br />
However, the fates had another destiny planned for me.
<br /><br />
You may remember that a few weeks back my van died. We took it to a garage while I was in Palo Alto. Yesterday, Julene called me from a store parking lot. The van was dead again with the same symptom. Happily, Randy was just arriving at work not far away and I was able to borrow his van to pull mine. After a phone call to verify with a <a href="http://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/central/provo/article_153c4881-e6cf-5c46-bc1a-1a7e7c4d51e8.html">friend</a>* that it was indeed going to be worth shelling out $160 to buy a new starter from AutoZone, and after many fun adventures like being pushed hard down from the top of my street so that I had enough momentum to land it in my garage, but not so much as not to be able to turn (without power steering) or brake to a halt (again, no running motor, right?), I changed out my starter.
<br /><br />
Sam and I took the old one in to AutoZone to have it tested before putting the new one it. The tests were at first conclusive, but then we discovered a loose wire and had to retest it to make sure. The starter worked better, but the machine still failed it. Then I insisted the guy test the new starter I had just bought. The difference in performance, not to mention the machine bestowing a blue ribbon on it at the end, made me feel better about the expense and the time.
<br /><br />
However, earlier, I discovered that the starter wasn't in the right place--just underneath the driver's side where all the starters in my life have ever been. I crawled deeper under to find it on the other side from which I didn't have access because I had beached my van carefully to expose the driver's side.
<br /><br />
As I lay under the van, I began to have visions of the whole thing coming off my central hydraulic jack and it was obvious that death by crushing and suffocation would be painful and too long not to mention the disconcertment of those around me when it happened. So I "did the worm" to crawl back out from under and bought a pair of jack stands at Home Depot where I'd planned to be buying stuff like sheet rock and lumber that day.
<br /><br />
For all my whining and moaning, I have to admit that a starter is a simple thing to replace on a very big vehicle like a van. I probably wasn't under the car longer than 20-30 minutes all told and there were no puzzlers of the sort that sometimes happen when working on a car.
<br /><br />
Oh, and to finish the story, the van starts up just fine... for now.
<br /><br />
* P.S. The article at the link above about this friend I've sung with for 20+ years now is well worth the read.
</span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-83377141937507027442012-03-20T18:54:00.018-06:002012-03-22T06:23:27.784-06:00REST-assured!<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">It's been a little while since my last post; I've been very busy professionally and personally.<br /><br />For example, over the last month, I've weighed EasyMock and Mockito, then chosen the latter and cranked out a first draft of tests to cover a business logic layer already written.<br /><br />This last week or so, however, I’ve been playing around with <a href="http://code.google.com/p/rest-assured/">REST-assured</a> in my spare time in an effort to leave no stone unturned on the way to covering every path in our restlet with a test. This is a very lightweight, open-source (Google-hosted) framework that allows you to test your JAX-RS implementation.<br /><br /><b>ReST testing is brittle</b><br /><br />This sort of testing is a little brittle to say the least. It requires...<br /><br />— Tomcat running the restlet.<br />— a database (in my case anyway) initialized with at least a modicum of test fodder.<br /><br />In my case, I targeted one entity in my server that amounts to a collection of 172 guaranteed objects in my database. So, ...<br /><br />— in order to test the HTTP POST, PUT and DELETE verbs, assumptions had to be made as to the existence of objects (being able to add rows to the database, some to update and some to delete for completeness).<br /><br />The result is or can be somewhat destructive.<br /><br />That's three strikes and the first two clearly mean this is not unit testing anyway, but something else (although, you code in JUnit).<br /><br />I'm in the REST-assured community trying to find out how to solve the third problem. Still, it's a back-burner project as it's not super important and there aren't a tremendous number of code paths involved. These paths may turn out to be the 20% I don't cover.<br /><br /><b>But wait: There are advantages!</b><br /><br />Still, it's pretty cool: the code reads wells, is simple and very self-documenting.<br /><br />Second, it is a great formalism for stating exactly what URIs are implemented (handled by my ReSTful service) and how they should behave.<br /><br />Last, it covers creating failure situations and explicit checking for particular HTTP status code returns.<br /><br />Ooooo...<br /><br />These last two points scratch (nay, gash deeply with long nails!) my TDD fascination and are the real reason I even walked this path.<br /><br />Check out my notes and sample code <a href="http://www.javahotchocolate.com/notes/rest-assured.html">here</a>.<br /></span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-18727350905388436922012-01-15T11:48:00.010-07:002012-01-15T12:04:28.690-07:00Gloria mi insegna a cucinare<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.gloriaslittleitaly.com/images/glorias.png"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 264px; height: 107px;" src="http://www.gloriaslittleitaly.com/images/glorias.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">I'm taking cooking classes from Gloria Bonfanti this month.<br /><br />Observations: I made some really good pizza yesterday, I chose to make a <em>Margherita</em> I believe it's called. When I opened the huge bag of basil leaves, it was like walking into an opium den. I almost passed out from a drug-induced stupor. I'd be making this again today if it weren't that it's my granddaughter's birthday and she's asked for <em>feijoada</em>.<br /><br />We made <em>risotto e funghi</em>. Gloria likes a lot of salt in the food. When we tasted the <em>risotto</em>, she asked if we liked the taste. I said I did, but that it was too salty by far. She said, "Ah, now that's the French for you."<br /><br />Then we made a <em>penne</em> with broccoli and sausage dish. It was fun using her kitchen for this: the broccoli blanched and the pasta cooked in little compartments that fit a rack then plunged into a deep fat fryer except filled with boiling water. When she asked how I thought it tasted, I said it was perfect. She said, "Hmmm... there's not nearly enough salt in it."<br /><br />Next week is <em>pollo con funghi</em>, meatballs in tomato sauce and a section on how to marinate meat and potatoes.<br /><br />The week after that is <em>tiramisu</em> and <em>crostata al cioccolato</em>.<br /><br />It's very instructive to see how a practicing chef works. I'm now totally bummed by my own kitchen. I need a real cooktop and real ovens. I'm already starting to think seriously about the ovens because I've got room to do something about it if I want (because of how I redesigned my kitchen when we bought the house).<br /></span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-45304793007923712412012-01-12T14:50:00.008-07:002012-01-12T15:18:48.693-07:00Technical debt<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif"><em>Technical debt</em> is a recent metaphor in my industry concocted to refer to the phenomenon that as we write and modify computer program code, its increased complexity costs us more.<br /><br />The idea is that as programs age, they cost a company more money in terms of developer time and expertise to maintain or enhance them. Debt can also be a function of resources the application consumes, stuff like computer power, database size, increased disk space, memory and network bandwidth requirements.<br /><br />This debt metaphor applies especially to the accumulation of code that's duplicated, tightly coupled, untested or doesn't fall under paths of known test coverage—all creating the situation where a developer goes in to add a feature and finds either that he cannot do it without breaking something else because of unforeseen dependencies between existing components or must do a great deal more work because there are considerably more points in the source base that demand his attention than might be estimated.<br /><br />Obviously, reducing existing debt is thought to be important; limiting it in the first place is a pretty big goal.<br /><br />And yet, this metaphor can be abused.<br /><br />One might postulate that an application's debt can be seen like a mortgage at a certain interest rate. If the company considers "paying it off," the exercise quickly becomes daunting. A great deal of effort must be expended to make that happen.<br /><br />Of course, the tools used to measure technical debt are suspicious in and of themselves. Their use and configuration cannot be taken lightly.<br /><br />In the end, technical debt isn't really like a mortgage because one needn't always pay it down. One particularly nasty component may, in the wisdom of a measuring tool, constitute a huge debt in terms of its complexity. But, tools don't measure the fact that maybe there aren't bugs in it or that there is little or no need to go into that component to do anything. Whatever its cost may be estimated at, if no developer's ever going to have to touch it, the imaginary cost is not important.<br /><br />Other code that must be touched frequently, such as a user interface, would be an important undertaking full of potential pitfalls. It would be more important to concentrate on doing it right, maybe choosing a widely understood framework, ensuring freater much test coverage, etc. than other components.<br /><br />Beyond these considerations is the longevity of an application. If an application is soon to be replaced by a new version or by another application altogether, it's not important to spend any more money on it. It's like spending money on janitors to clean up a building that will fall to the wrecking ball.<br /><br />Nevertheless, this metaphor is apt. And it underlines the need for software development to be agile, invested in test- or behavior-driven development techniques so that no code is written that's not covered by tests.<br /><br />Test first; then code. State behavior by means of a test first, then code to solve the challenge.<br /></span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-58582611236500276382011-12-30T16:43:00.007-07:002011-12-30T17:20:25.680-07:00Manly thrills and excitement!<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">When young, we fixed stuff ourselves. No big deal; poverty, semi-poverty or just frugality meant that we did it instead of paying someone else to do it.<br /><br />Somewhere along the way, they figured it out. Auto makers began colluding with dealerships to produce cars that would need a modicum of repairs over their service life. Guys like me who used to know what every last thing under the hood did and what to do when it broke, long ago stopped recognizing much. Television sets, washers, ovens, refrigerators and other electric appliances became unserviceable at the component or subcomponent levels. Too, we get better jobs and better pay wimping out and allowing our manhood to drip away.<br /><br />Well, today, I cheated the system. I fixed my two-oven stack, saving myself hundreds of dollars.<br /><br />It used to be that when an oven stopped working, you replaced the heating element that no longer fired.<br /><br />This is almost never the problem today. Last year, in my old house I kept for (usually related) college students. I lost an oven for want of a magic board to keep it running. Oven manufacturers discontinue component-level replacements after a few years and what was an dream oven I bought brand, spanking new in the late 1990s, an upscale one to boot, was reduced to worthless and I had to replace it.<br /><br />That unit needed not only the circuit card that ran the oven elements, it also need the logic module—what ran the digit read-out, touch pad, etc.<br /><br />I learned a few years ago, at the same time that I was first disabused of the out-dated notion that you can simply replace an element when it stops working, that modern ovens turn on and off the elements. This is the clicking sound you're hearing. In this way, they also use less power and need far less current. It cost me something like $350 to learn this lesson, about $200 of it was for a new circuit board.<br /><br />When I installed my oven in the old house and the stack in my new one, I always ran 8-3 or at least 10-3 with ground to supply them. But I noticed that the ovens' factory cabling wasn't anything like that heavy. This can be because they now cycle on and off making it unnecessary to handle such huge current loads (30 or 40 amps back in the day) for so long a time. (Or, so I theorize.)<br /><br />What this means is that when the oven goes out (excepting for the logic board), it's likely a relay/solenoid, the thing that goes clickity-click.<br /><br />Having kept a board I needed to replace in my oven stack a few years back, I reached a conclusion based on inspecting it: the built-in obsolescence relies on the circuit board heating up and slowly letting its solder melt and/or dissipate. You replace the board because it stops functioning. It might have been a relay, but likely it wasn't. It was the board.<br /><br />I just proved this to myself. I kept that old board and resoldered two relay lugs that were obviously "unsoldered" over the few years I'd had it thinking that if the board ever failed again, I'd at least try the old one now repaired. It was the upper oven.<br /><br />The lower oven lost its broiler a year ago or so, but I've just been using the upper one. (Besides, everything I put under a broiler is reduced to ash anyway, so I generally avoid using it.) Last week, I lost the whole bottom oven for baking as well—just in time for Christmas dinner.<br /><br />I'm about to embark on my traditional New Year's Eve dinner. Pulling it off with a single oven isn't pleasant to think about.<br /><br />Today, I pulled it out, photographed the boards, recognized the new board (which was for the upper oven) and pulled the one for the bottom instead (after also noting all the colored cabling in case my photos weren't sufficient).<br /><br />Sure enough, the dysfunction was identical to the old board for the top oven. Excited to prove my theory, I dug out my old Weller and applied new solder to two points underneath the board. I reassembled and fired up the lower oven.<br /><br />Success!!!<br /><br />I am finally a man again.<br /></span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-74454208550648038932011-11-02T18:15:00.006-06:002011-11-02T18:26:06.563-06:00Cheap thrills..<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">When you can get them, every time you can get them.<br /><br />Today I polished off a new <a href="http://www.javahotchocolate.com/tutorials/apache-ant.html#custom">Apache ant custom task</a> I wrote by publishing it along with some Eclipse projects that illustrate one of the tutorials I used to figure out how to write a custom task. Then I went back in and tested a feature I'd put in, but had forgot to use (it worked). Subsequently, my continuous build (via Jenkins) stopped breaking, well, only after fixing a few things in some SQL scripts that suddenly became visible because of the cool ant task I added to the build.<br /><br />Yesterday, someone wrote to thank me for that Eclipse, Tomcat, JSP and servlets tutorial I wrote way back in 2008.<br /><br />Things have wound seriously down at work for the next release of things. I can sigh in relief and look forward to more "planned" (read: non panic-motivated) work.<br /><br />As I say, cheap thrills.<br /></span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-35208274296486632172011-10-25T16:22:00.016-06:002011-10-25T16:56:09.354-06:00In the doghouse...<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">Sometime last spring, my van's heating and cooling system failed in the sense that I could no longer direct the air anywhere in particular. It was stuck on the floor, which wasn't particularly helpful for refrigeration.<br /><br />No matter; I ride a motorcycle almost exclusively in the spring, summer and fall. Still, there are those times...<br /><br /> ...and, after all, winter is coming: I can't operate this vehicle without a defroster.<br /><br />Well, I knew that, because this happened before, there was some nasty work in the offing. Julene remembered that the last time, the mechanic reattached some hose to the engine. Yeah, back when I was a child, the manifold vacuum was used to operate many things—using amply large-gauge rubber tubing. Not everything is electric even today.<br /><br />Well, for the Chevy Astro van, there's a "doghouse" that encloses the back end of the engine compartment isolating it from the cab. The operating manual has instructions and illustrations on how to do that. This doghouse cover must be removed because the hose connects underneath it. It also connects up in a place accessible from the front mixed in a bit with large aluminum tubes that appear related to refrigeration. (I'm not verifying all I'm saying 'cause I'm way past interested in auto mechanics at this point in my life, but most of this is accurate I think.)<br /><br />At first, I couldn't find any tube likely to the one in question. And the doghouse wouldn't come completely out of the van without removing one of the seats. As (bad) luck would have it, my brother has the same vehicle (a little newer) and the same problem at the same time. If that weren't convenient, his second son married the daughter of the guy who, Julene thinks, fixed this thing the first time. So, a little networking and a visit from my brother after calling the mechanic and he found the broken tube exactly where he learned it would be.<br /><br />The problem is this tiny gauge (1/8") tube is cooked by the engine over the top of which it's routed, become brittle and ultimately breaks. Mine broke next to the repair splice from the first time. The splice was still good; much of the rest of the tube was brittle.<br /><br />We went to get a replacement from AutoZone, but they only had ¼" gauge tubing and some tubing connectors, none of which really was the answer, but we were in hard way, night was falling, etc.<br /><br />We clipped off the tiny hose from its nice factory ends (rubber elbows that mated with a T connector in front and a nipple on a connector at the back under the doghouse) leaving short stubs of that tubing, still not brittle, and cleaned the latter up. We force-fitted these good bits of the remaining skinny tubing into nylon connectors from an $8 box of a million different size tubing connectors purchased from AutoZone, and heated up the ¼" tubing ends to go over the other end of the connector.<br /><br />This, plus hooking it back up did the trick. My brother did his this morning and reports that it all went much faster as he'd been in on most of the job at my house.<br /><br />Here are the puzzling bits I learned performing this repair. I'm hoping that after the search engines crawl my post, these points and my account will help someone else.<br /><br />1. You need a large-gauge star drive to remove the two upper screws holding the console to the frame over the doghouse.<br /><br />2. In order to remove the upper, passenger-side screw holding the doghouse to the firewall, you must have a flat-blade screwdriver at least 18" long. Nothing else will reach in there because there's precious little room left between a duct and the doghouse.<br /><br />3. The tubing is tiny and the end under the doghouse is on the driver's side very near the throttle body.<br /><br />The rest of what's going on is fairly obvious.<br /></span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-6164068367334172152011-10-10T15:59:00.021-06:002011-10-10T16:23:43.619-06:00Birthday!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjapYDNMXIbO9gsIqh4JGiv_poPkMGepzngkeJFGZ2Xn2umN6g-FZP5iRIvJn7JqgyKXlvc5KRMN6VeBb4q3CwBfeuydtRtqE3O_eYnV2fFlVdMEF-ZPN30OKqhVC6RpOzIKB_JZZFQZNo/s1600/birthday.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjapYDNMXIbO9gsIqh4JGiv_poPkMGepzngkeJFGZ2Xn2umN6g-FZP5iRIvJn7JqgyKXlvc5KRMN6VeBb4q3CwBfeuydtRtqE3O_eYnV2fFlVdMEF-ZPN30OKqhVC6RpOzIKB_JZZFQZNo/s400/birthday.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5661987122462980530" /></a><span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">Twenty-seven years ago today, about the time I'm writing this (between three and four in the afternoon), my wife and I got on our motorcycle and headed up to a specially scheduled venue for a party we'd been planning for some time. We were a little tight on space in our tiny car, and we needed to get a few things ready anyway, so we planned for her mother to follow a little later with our three children aged seven, six and four.<br /><br />Everything was already set up and waiting for us. There were treats including a cake as I remember (no, really) and drinks and even staff to wait on us, hand and foot. The children and their grandmother arrived in plenty of time for the party to start. The only one missing was a special invitee, whom we'd not really met before.<br /><br />He arrived a little later.<br /><br />One could accuse him of arriving "late," and certainly he didn't arrive until after all the other guests, but maybe just a little like a wizard, he didn't arrive early or late, but precisely when he meant to.<br /><br />A great time was had by everyone and we all got along with him so well that we invited our honored and newly met guest to come home with us.<br /><br />And so he did.<br /><br />And we've all been delighted by him ever since.<br /><br />Happy birthday, Thierry Daniel Bateman.<br /></span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-69285949933386921252011-10-02T17:33:00.011-06:002011-10-25T17:01:34.099-06:00Death of a tabernacle<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbYRrug_hfkw7OTTgU0UAVZWR3tGfEH4_Wl1GyxRtdiZP-dZ6uglTOfa-Zhl_s8s6735bMBwltQ-srzhQlNU0HgQfJrPjU1P_x-EU3R3C7bHR3YK2i0fQrT7DScDueVu1nKuqGwhfSNLA/s1600/provo-tabernacle.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbYRrug_hfkw7OTTgU0UAVZWR3tGfEH4_Wl1GyxRtdiZP-dZ6uglTOfa-Zhl_s8s6735bMBwltQ-srzhQlNU0HgQfJrPjU1P_x-EU3R3C7bHR3YK2i0fQrT7DScDueVu1nKuqGwhfSNLA/s400/provo-tabernacle.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659042303795011874" /></a><span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif">As announced yesterday, the Provo Tabernacle is no more. The outside walls will be restored, but the interior, the seating, the gallery, the choir seats and organ will never see the light of day again.<br /><br />This edifice burned down last December. See story <a href="http://russellbateman.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-season-tragedy.html">here</a>.<br /><br />The Church has decided to turn it into a temple. Understandably, the Church is not in the business of rebuilding community centers for secular benefit. However, failing to restore it to its original purpose makes for a very sad loss in that this building has stood for over 120 years as part of the community not only in terms of its spiritual usage, but it has, just as the Salt Lake City Tabernacle, served a local community's other needs. In Provo's case, this has meant hosting concerts (including an appearance by none other than Sergei Rachmaninoff) and community musical programs, school commencement exercises, university student piano, organ and other recitals, and it has served as home now and then to organizations such as the now defunct Utah Valley Choral Society. It has seen many performances of Handel's <em>Messiah</em>.<br /><br />From a more conventional viewpoint, it long served as the site for stake conferences of various local stakes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And it served the Roman Catholic community at least once or twice for Christmas Eve mass.<br /><br />One of the more delightful aspects of this beautiful old building was that it hosted ecclesiastical meetings in a comfortable context and secular events in a cozy, inviting atmosphere appreciated by many Utah Valley residents be they Mormon or not.<br /><br />And, there is really nothing in terms of a venue that comes close to replacing it.<br /><br />On the plus side, most if not all of the block immediately south will include considerable green space that the City is hoping will attract people, and therefore shoppers, to central Provo which has for decades defied all efforts at reinvigoration.<br /><br />Over the years, many Utah communities have learned the lesson that their tabernacles are similarly doomed as they no longer fit a growing Church's agenda or purposes. One by one, these historic structures have either fallen to the wrecking ball or, as in the case of Vernal and Provo, been converted to other purposes, temples in these two cases, a museum in another. Sadly, it's a rich legacy we're losing.<br /></span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-83844083928652926592011-09-03T20:09:00.038-06:002011-09-03T21:44:38.570-06:00Sibelius : Tervedys !<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6EMiYN0R3taR0qKu3FuH5bploCneDvqz8HWGvb3RYz1X2FL6k1YJCpQDxKC3l1l0UmAfPa0auIR1Luyb9EsmO4B0Rx31ZxYq0ajTIRz1gaA7Tvft9FpvcF9bBoF4eHgLnTnoiVWDP9UI/s1600/sibelius.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6EMiYN0R3taR0qKu3FuH5bploCneDvqz8HWGvb3RYz1X2FL6k1YJCpQDxKC3l1l0UmAfPa0auIR1Luyb9EsmO4B0Rx31ZxYq0ajTIRz1gaA7Tvft9FpvcF9bBoF4eHgLnTnoiVWDP9UI/s320/sibelius.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5648320954770034866" /></a><scan style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;">Hail, Sibelius!
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<br />The 20th of September is the 54th anniversary of Sibelius' death. I was 2½.
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<br />No, there is no connection, strained or otherwise, but then, I didn't know Bach from Beethoven either.
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<br />Since introduced to his music in the spring of 1974, I've come easily to the opinion there has been no more fabulous composer—in every sense of the term. Jean Sibelius was the most lyrically musical mind the world has ever known. His <i>symphonishe Dichtungen</i> or tone poems are magical, his symphonies superb and unpredictable.
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<br />Dark and brooding, nevertheless from his music escape faeric themes that enchant against a contrasting even lugubrious background. Suffused with northern light of waning, cold days, majestic vistas, and stern heroes, it alternates from hypnotic to bewitching.
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<br />I've often said in jest that Sibelius is often so ponderous and depressing at times that, by contrast, it makes me feel in a lighter mood. But only in jest.
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<br />As a treat, the Public Radio Exchange recently included him in a program series, <a href="http://www.prx.org/pieces/63866-december-26-1926-the-premiere-of-tapiola">
<br /><i>13 Days When Music Changed Forever</i></a>, revolutionary moments when music was fundamentally transformed, hosted by musician and composer Suzanne Vega.
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<br />Sibelius is rightfully included. Sibelius is the pinnacle of musical Romanticism, the last word before the descent into dissonant Modernism. Which makes him very relevant today.
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<br />If you don't know this composer, the PRX broadcast is a fair introduction, but don't stop there. Take the plunge. I particularly suggest the easy introductions, to wit, the Second and Fifth symphonies, and the tone poems, <i>Finlandia</i>, <i>Pohjola's Daughter</i>, <i>Tapiola</i>, <i>En Saga</i>, the <i>Swan of Tuonela</i> and the <i>Valse Triste</i>. If you like organ, the <i>Surusoitto</i> is considered the echo of his never published and probably destroyed Eighth Symphony. There is much more including the magnificent <i>Violin Concerto in D</i>.
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<br />Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-40469493953891344462011-08-18T19:58:00.014-06:002011-08-18T20:18:51.385-06:00The little grey cells...<span style="font-family: Candara, Trebuchet MS, Arial, sans-serif;"><strong><em>What I haven't told you, because Google disenfranchised my blog about the time it happened, is that I was involved in another exciting medical experience this spring. Here would have been my report Wednesday, 8 June had I been able to file it.</em></strong>
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<br />The over-all sensation of the last 10 days is one of having been forced to run through a crowd of people all of whom beat me mercilessly with instruments, some heavy and blunt, some sharp and small. Somewhere in the middle of it, my fifth granddaughter was born! (See post for 31 May 2011.)
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<br />In more real terms, I began spontaneously to bleed to death just as I began to mount my motorcycle to go to work on the morning of the first day of June.
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<br />Inauspicious!
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<br />As soon as Julene could ready herself, we departed in the van (rather than sacrifice her nice car) for the hospital. I adopted the bowl I typically use to make pie crusts, baking powder biscuits and other delights in.
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<br />It took the EMT surgeon 2½ hours to stem the flow of blood—failing in the case of about 3 litres of it. He admitted to me later he was plenty worried most of the time. He told me he'd never spent so much time in surgery, never had anyone lose so much blood, and never had to transfuse blood to a patient in over six years. I don't know all that he did, but he said he couldn't find exactly what to fix, so he started reconstructing stuff behind my face until it stopped. I think I'm minus some principal artery in my face now (there are a whole bunch with names I don't remember learning in any of my anatomy classes)—small loss. However, I wasn't there: thank small angels for inventions like general anesthesia.
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<br />Waking up was predictably very hard and painful and with my refusal to ingest narcotics (as they nauseate more than anesthetize me), I went home to convalesce Thursday afternoon. Very much in pain, very anxiety-ridden, my blood pressure went up to 220 by nighttime Friday. Saturday morning the doctor reminded me that stroke was a very real possibility, so I returned to the hospital immediately.
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<br />They found a cocktail of narcotic and nausea-repressant that did not sicken me (a trial that failed some 10 years ago in unrelated event, so there's history behind this). By Sunday morning all sorts of additional symptoms, contributory and substantial in their own right began to stop asserting themselves though it really took them until today to reach the partial conclusion that I'll be okay. At one point there was discussion that despite improvement, there's an unusual autoimmune shenanigan going on and they say they want to find that. I personally am quite done with the whole thing.
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<br />Ultimately, I imagine, a nose-bleed from hell will come take me when, just as last week, I least expect it. It's not lost on me that, while traumatic for the family, that door is probably less desirable than, say, languishing for months or years finally to succumb to cancer. At least not for me.
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<br />I'm here; I'm on board with sticking around; I'm eager to determine whether I also lost any little grey cells as Poirot would say. I'll return to work at least by Friday if not as I hope tomorrow. I know it will take a few days to reestablish daily habits and finish clearing the mist...
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<br />Thanks to all who wished me well. Apologies to those I didn't adequately notify which include many cherished friends who, being so far away, geographically or shall we say socially, seemed like the easiest to abuse in exchange for lessening the burden on Julene and myself. Work colleagues too. As I say, with a keyboard in my hands, I'm a great communicator, but toss me even my Android phone (even with thumbboard) and it takes a lot to motivate me to extend my news beyond my children, parents and siblings. As it is this note's been devilish hard to write (having lost some of the grey cells devoted to typing skills).
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<br /><strong><em>Of course, the Sunday after I wrote this, I re-bled, if only less than a pint. Nevertheless, I solidly revisited the hopeless feeling for a short time of bleeding to death. It stopped at the emergency room and hasn't re-bled since (it's been over two months now) and it's taken me about this long to forget the paranoia.
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<br />Nevertheless, I saw my surgeon for the last check-up today and he pronounced me fit, but cautioned me to keep squirting water up my nose and humidifying the air around me at night.
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<br /></span>Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-158544365276941862.post-23037867149061076182011-08-17T10:27:00.014-06:002011-08-17T14:39:26.673-06:00Git, while the gittin's good!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKrk9y-01TnOP4zGzHz4ktp5iYUXv_v0ZFlZr0LiK8ZQUHytkdVPN0lbDUZlF3THcUHPZgtkwP1jwbVEoZePsE9PosmureEZvABDJDNaV-KtySBDo-eHFIdhRnD69MNU8czscH49OQjY/s1600/git-logo.png"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 98px; height: 187px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijKrk9y-01TnOP4zGzHz4ktp5iYUXv_v0ZFlZr0LiK8ZQUHytkdVPN0lbDUZlF3THcUHPZgtkwP1jwbVEoZePsE9PosmureEZvABDJDNaV-KtySBDo-eHFIdhRnD69MNU8czscH49OQjY/s320/git-logo.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641863495829336082" border="0" /></a>
<br /><span style="font-family:Candara,Trebuchet MS,Arial,sans-serif;">Since late April I've been investing in learning Git for practical reasons. A new project my team's begun at work wasn't going to be done using Perforce (because we all hate it) and, rather than use Subversion, we thought it would be a great time to see what the future holds (or pay homage to Linus: you decide which).
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<br />Git's got some great features (how's that for an alliterative <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/louange"><em>louange</em></a>?) including administration via <a href="https://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite/wiki"><i>gitolite</i></a>. Yesterday, I spent 7 hours in a course on it to help wrap up three months of stumbling around in the dark and getting bailed out of dangerous situations by my nephew who's an expert with it.
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<br />I think the things I like best about Git are:
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<br /> - <tt>git status</tt>
<br /> - easy manipulation of branches
<br /> - <tt>git stash</tt>
<br /> - speed
<br /> - did I mention <tt>git status</tt>?
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<br />After using Perforce for a few months, I can't believe how much I've missed a status-revealing command and Git's not only tells you what's what, it tells you what you can do about it.
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<br />I think I'm going to have to replace my Subversion server at home.
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<br />Russell Batemanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02161066649629592306noreply@blogger.com0