Inspired by the apparent congruence between the book World War Z and the film World War Z, I was struck by an imaginary conversation that led me to a very marketable idea. Here’s the conversation: “Let’s call it ‘Tom Sawyer.'” “But the main character’s named Philip MacGillicuddy, and it’s about an invasion of flying robotic [...]
Repost: Rocket Java: What is Map/Reduce?
Map/Reduce is a strategy by which one uses a divide-and-conquer approach to handling data. The division is normally provided along natural lines, and it can provide some really impressive performance gains. The way it does this is by limiting the selection of data for which processing applies. Here’s a good way to think of it, [...]
Repost: Geddy Lee’s weird bass is a Precision!
Today I read an article from Guitar Player, from 1980, where Geddy Lee solved a question I’ve had for years, about what kind of bass was featured in a number of pictures. See the bass immediately to his right? It looks like a teardrop. I’ve seen color pictures; it’s sort of a light blue gradient; [...]
Repost: Java sucks without semantic awareness
This is a short post from TheServerSide.com that I’d written way back in 2008. It was written in humor, which many who read it did not quite understand, but the point remains for those who wish to see it: A conversation with someone highlighted yet another problem with Java, a fatal one: Java’s lack of [...]
Repost: Seventeen seconds is all you get?
This statement really surprised me: 5. Refuse to interrupt. Recent research has indicated that the average individual listens for only seventeen seconds before interrupting and interjecting his own ideas… (from “The Five Love Languages Men’s Edition“, Gary Chapman, 2009) I don’t have a page number for that reference; I was reading via Kindle for Android. [...]
Repost: Open Source and football
My son has joined a local football team. I try to be an involved dad, so I’m trying my hand at helping to coach. He’s surprisingly good at defensive end; I’m very proud of him. However, in their most recent practice (Thursday), something stood out to me. We were running a half-line; basically the center, [...]
Repost: Review, Outies
I’m presently reading Jennifer Pournelle’s “Outies,” via Amazon’s Cloud Reader service. I’m a big fan of her father’s and Larry Niven’s Mote series (consisting of “The Mote in God’s Eye” and “The Gripping Hand“) and I was really looking forward to a new installment… if it lived up to the merit of its predecessors. It [...]
Repost: Faux artists
You know, I have a problem with non-artists. You know the people of whom I’m thinking; maybe you even admire them. They’re bands like KISS. They’re storytellers like Stan Lee. They’re the artists who create immensely popular stuff, perhaps for niche audiences, knowing that it’s perhaps not “high art” but it still appeals to innumerable [...]
Repost: Writing prompt: a greeting card and a response
So I’m trying to write more often than I have, and by golly, I’m going to try to use writing prompts if necessary to make it happen. So here’s today’s: Write a poem in the disguise of a postcard message. Continue by writing a reply postcard message. Thinking of you with words so trite They're [...]
Repost: DavidRM’s The Journal
I’ve recently decided to try – really try – journaling. It’s like blogging, but private. Why private, when I have a blog? For a few reasons, really. One reason is that it requires a lot less thought to construct decent posts. When I’m writing for a general audience (I.e., more than myself) I want the [...]