I went to the annual K-State-v-KU men’s basketball matchup in Bramlage Coliseumlast night and watched the great rivalry continue (hard to call it a rivalry when KU has been so dominate). I really enjoyed myself despite the fact that KU won. It was great to see the fan support that turned out and it was amazing to see so many people in black (for Black-out Monday).
I suppose this post is just my way of saying that I am proud of the young men on the K-State men’s basketball team. They really came to play and didn’t give up. And they could have very easily folded when 1) they weren’t shooting well, 2) the talent ratio was clearly not on their side, and 3) the officials had a hard time calling a good game (in other words, they sucked).
Way to go Cats! I am proud of you and hope you will be able to finish the season in great shape and make a trip to the NCAA tournament this year.
I recently watched a lecture by Lawrence Lessig that he presented to OSCON 2002. I have seen him in person once, listened to a couple of lectures online, and I read from his blog regularly. In this lecture, he provides (what appears to be) an open, honest view of culture and freedom. He also does a great job of calling out those of us who are listening but not doing anything to fight against those that wish to bottle up culture (and sell it exclusively).
I have a hard time with this because I do not approve of what ourlawmakers are doing and what the entertainmentindustry is doing. On the other hand, I must not be too bothered by it since I continue to buy CDs, books, movies, and other forms of culture (which supports those I oppose) as well as not express my distaste to lawmakers. Futher, I don’t even supportthose that fight against this in any meaningful way. Put another way, in thought I am outraged … but in action I am doing the opposite.
I hope I can finally convince myself to do something about this (stop purchasing their wares and support those that fight against them). I also encourage others to consider what is happening in the world related to intellectual property and act appropriately.
I saw a blog entry during my daily blog-fest and thought I might share it. It really effected me. This is the explanation from the uploaded video …
This is a car advertisement from Great Britain. When they finished filming the ad, the film editor noticed something moving along the side of the car, like a ghostly white mist. They found out that a person had been killed a year earlier in that exact same spot. The ad was never put on TV because of the unexplained ghostly phenomenon.
Watch the front end of the car closely as it clears the trees in the middle of the screen and you’ll see the white mist crossing in front of the car then following it along the road….Spooky!
Is it a ghost, or is it simply mist? You decide. If you listen to the ad, you’ll even hear the cameraman whispering in the background about it near the end of the commercial. A little creepy but it seems to be authentic!
You might also have a better view of the ghost using Google video here (it is a bigger video screen so it has more detail).
I recently completed reading a good book … or rather a good collection of writing organized into book form. This book is titled The Best Software Writing I selected and introducted by Joel Spolsky. It has some of my favorite tech-authors in it (Eric Sink, Raymond Chen, and Paul Graham) as well as some new favorite tech-authors. Joel, and his readers, did a great job of finding good articles that relate to software (using as well as building).
There was one issue that I had with the book; there are many places in the book that have URLs as references and I wanted to click them (instead of type them in). I suppose that is the true downside to books now, we are all used to just clicking a word, phrase, or picture to get more information about it. What I mean is that I have not been to my local library in quite some time, I have not used a card catalog, and I have not had to read through old journals. I just do a quick google or wikipedia search and follow the links until I find what I am looking for. I know this is progress but it just reminds me how painful research used to be.
So take some time to check out The Best Software Writing I and email Joel so that he will create a The Best Software Writing II.
On Tuesday night (Jan 30th), she attended a work session for the commission that discussed the current proposal as well as provided an opportunity for community feedback. At that session, she took some time to voice her (expert) opinion.
I am sure she didn’t find it as great as I did, but she was televised on the Manhattan City Channel. I didn’t get a chance to watch it, but I taped it and will be reviewing it on Saturday (when I have some free-time of my own). I did hear, from a friend of mine that saw it, that she sounded good and explained the issue quite well.
I think she did the city a great service by doing the research and sharing it with them. I hope they see it this way as well. And it seems like the City Commission is slowly coming around to creating a decent city ordinance that relates to dangerous dogs but it is taking some real coaxing from the community and the experts.
Well, I just wanted to brag about my wonderful wife. Thank you for staying tuned for it.
One of the things that I like about this book is how it is organized. Each chapter is broken down into practices. Each practice is described in the same way. First, they give “devil’s” side of the practice. This usually comes down to a quote about doing the wrong thing that is the opposite of what the good practice is. After the quote the authors provide details about what the practice is, details on how it can be applied, and often times some personal anecdote related to the practice. They finish each practice with the “angel’s” perspective and some guidance on what it feels like and how to stay balanced. This organization style makes it easy to understand. Even more, it made it easy for me to work my way through the book in small chunks of time (I read this off and on for about 1 month).
Another thing that I like about this book is that the issues they talk about being confronted with fit with my experiences. So their solutions make a great deal of sense. Even more, I use some of the practices that they mention. I just wish I could convince myself to start trying more of them on a regular basis as well as have others in the lab apply them.
Overall I think this is an excellent book and I would suggest it to anyone that is in the business of software development or anyone wishing to get into it. I would further suggest the other books from The Pragmatic Programmers because of their views as well as their writing style.
Thursday in Minneapolis, MN
Today brought a lazy morning, serious discussions, a treacherous trip to the airport, a delayed flight, and a tired drive back home.
The day started early, but after Sara left for work and Matt took the girls to day-care it was quite the lazy morning. Matt and I spent a little time shopping (oh what fun) and a lot of time chatting. We always seem to have some great discussions about some important topics. Things like abortion, hurricane katrina, and our faith were on the list of discussions for the day. This was a lot of fun since Matt always challenges my thoughts, ideas, and beliefs but does it in a way that makes me better (as opposed to making me feel small or stupid).
By mid-morning it had started to rain in the Twin cities. Shortly after that the bad weather started. First, freezing rain, then sleet, and finally a good deal of snow fell in a matter of 8 hours. I was scheduled to fly out of MSP around 5pm but started to worry that my flight would be delayed or cancelled altogether. I spent a lot of time calling Northwest’s flight status number and visiting their website. I soon found out that this information is practically meaningless. I mean practically because I was able to deduce some information from their website. It turns out that you can query all flights and look at the real status of flights that have already departed or are late in departing. This gave me a good idea of how delayed flights were and if flights might be cancelled. I just wish NWA would give more direct feedback about “my” flight.
It turns out, the Twin cities and MSP know how to deal with this type of weather so the roads were fairly safe and the flights were only slightly delayed. By fairly I mean there was quite a bit of snow and drizzle on the road but was not very slick because they were being plowed, salt and sand dropped, and they had been treated. And by slightly I mean about 2 hours delayed.
Once I got on the plane and it was de-iced and took off, the flight went quickly and we landed safely. I had to wait at the airport for my checked luggage for an extra long time. This day had brought some pretty bad weather across the country and especially Denver. So the airport was over-busy and bags were misplaced. Luckily, I got my bag and Kari picked me up. A couple hours later and we were home safe and sound.
As a quick side note, I ran into an acquaintance of mine, Tyson Moore. He was arriving back in Kansas after spending the semester abroad. It was kind of fun seeing someone I knew at the airport.
