Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com

Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com: "SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas man was arrested on Monday after calling police to complain about the theft of his marijuana, authorities said.

Stephen Knight, 17, said three men had broken into his apartment, hogtied him with Christmas lights and stole some marijuana, along with a plasma screen television, police said.

Police are looking for the suspects. In the meantime, they arrested Knight after finding several marijuana plants growing under heat lamps in the apartment, four grams of harvested marijuana and a tablet of ecstasy, Officer Chad Ripley said.

Knight said the men barged into his home early on Monday morning demanding, 'Where's the weed?,' according to San Antonio police.
"

FT.com / Home UK - Rapid results without a rugby scrum

FT.com / Home UK - Rapid results without a rugby scrum: "Now it is being targeted more systematically at chief executives of large companies that might benefit from using it. “We aim at CEOs because CIOs [chief information officers] are part of the problem, not the solution,” says Mr Schwaber. “We are trying to directly connect the software developers with the customer, and CIOs are not too thrilled about being cut out of the action.”"

Article discussing Scrum, some of the companies using it, etc. - and the fact that it works and is cost effective.

RMS: Free as in Freedom

Just finished Sam William's book, Free as in Freedom on Richard Stallman. Read it in a few days, which is pretty good for me anymore, as I usually don't take the time to read. Having read Hackers, I thought it was a great read. More insight into "the last true hacker" - which fits the hacker mold out of which he grew. Also some great insights into the "free software" movement. And a cool thing is that the entire book is on-line, and supports reader comments on errors, etc.

It seems to me an alternate approach would be to "publish" it as a series of wiki pages, offering faster updates - but I don't know all the issues associated with publishing a book in that manner. In any case, cool stuff.

I suggest that anyone reading this, that is a hacker or developer and wants some insights, should take a look at it - again, especailly since it is reproduced entirely online.

As a personal side note - I am more involved in the "open source" movement than the "free software / gpl" movement. Although my understanding from the book is that they are close to the same. The issue is that, in working for corporate america, the corporate charges for its software, and we can't give it away, disclose it to anyone, etc. etc. So - we can't use GPL software, because it requires that we give our software away as well. (in a nutshell - again, my understanding). However, "open source" software usually has a license that is along the lines of "use this if you want - resell it as part of your stuff if you want. You can send fixes back to us, or not." Which in general allows us to "comprimise" (according to RMS) and meet our company binding terms (what we can do as employees of the company), but at the same time turn in patches, help contribute to the open source software, without being under any obligation to contribute "our" software.

This has worked well for years - CLIPS being a prime example. We use CLIPS - and from time to time I'm a member of the CLIPS community, offering suggestions, providing bug fixes, requesting enhancements, etc. A win-win - from the "useful" point of view.

Anyway, interesting stuff. I find it always good to read this kind of stuff. It connects me to the "community" at large.

VI - a great place for free food

So... following up on the Score - Free Strawberry Pie story. Tina and I were both tired the other night... maybe Thursday? Anyway, neither of us felt like cooking and Jaime wasn't home, so we decided to just go to Gunther Tood's or VI. They are basically across from each other, so we headed over and decided at the last minute to go to VI.

So we eat and with the "free strawberry pie" episode fresh in our minds, Tina looks over and sees the check sitting on the table and asks, "Did he offer us pie?". "Nope." - we both grin. Then Tina finishes eat and the waiter stops back by,

W: "Would you like some dessert?"
T: "Ah... we were hoping to get it free. But you asked"
W: "Heh heh heh... yeah, I'm not going to let that happen!"
T: "Ah, you should give it to us free anyway."
W: "No way" and he laughs and takes our order.

So he brings it out and says "Something is up with the computer and it won't let me add the pie, so I guess you get it free anyway!" - SCORE.

And then we finish and take the ticket up to the register. The manager asks how everything was. Great. Then goes to ring us out.

M: Something is wrong with this ticket.
T: Yeah, that is what the waiter said.

So he messes with stuff and I had him my credit card.

M: This has already been paid by a credit card.

So he calls the waiter over, and they look at stuff for a while, with plenty of "Sorry about the wait" - "Sorry this is taking so long" type comments. Which really didn't matter because it was only a few minutes and we were in no rush.

Finally he says, "Well - I can't figure out what to do. So I guess the meal is on us." So we got the meal for free. SCORE AGAIN.

I'm telling you, I think I'm eating at VI from now on. The last two visists we've gotten something free, and its getting better. I thinking next time they'll pay us. ;)

cosAgile

"Joined" cosAgile a while back, after going to a Ron Jefferies presentation they hosted. It was good stuff.

So - one of the things that Ron talked about was "practice". Many "artists" practice, but as software developer's we rarely do. We usually just "do". (And there is a whole discussion about whether we are artists or scientists, whether the "art" that we do is artistic or a scientific displain, etc - which I won't get into here). Anyway... he talked about the benefits of practicing. Writing code, and rewritting it, and studying it with other people, and then writting it again. Not so much because of what it does, or for the goal of having something "done" - but for the joy and learning of just practicing.

So - cosAgile meets every Tuesday at lunch for about an hour to "practice". I've gone two weeks in a row now. After my first time I thought it was just a blast. Not perhaps in a skiing or riding a roller coaster way, but in a Hackers kind of way. Just getting together with other hackers/developers and working on some code. Learning from each other. In a non-work related, not within my own team or company, no management driven deliverables, kind of way. Just doing something for the joy of doing it. And it was very cool. So I'm going to try and go every week.

I've contributed a few pages to their wiki and added a small bit of code. Nothing large - but again, just the idea of learning a new language (since I don't know Java) and working in a new IDE (since I don't know Eclipse) and interactive with other people in the field. All good stuff.

I'm psyched about it. :)

Happy Birthday to me. :)

Yesterday was my birthday. Wow... 47. 3 years to 50. Who would have thought.

Anyway, got this cool online card from Tif. My gold-rider.

Had a wonderful day. Jaime wasn't around because she was at the Desperation Conference, which she and Michael are attending. She said the worship has been awesome. That's very cool. - So anyway Tina and I both took off work and spent the day together.

I did some work in the morning for a bit, then she got up and we got around. Went out for brunch, then down to the zoo and hung out there for a few hours. Then went to the movies to see when Stealth was playing. Had some time so went shopping for a bit, then saw the movie then stopped at Carl's Jr on the way home. Came home and watched Million Dollar Baby. Basically: got out of the house, and just hung out together, having a great time. Very simple, but very cool. Walking hand in hand through the zoo, etc.

We are usually so busy, and it felt so much like a Saturday... but it wasn't so we have today "off" as well. An awesome time. We need to do it more often.

Anyway, it was a great day!

NASA Suspending Shuttle Program Over Foam Debris - New York Times

"The maneuver followed a decision by NASA on Wednesday to suspend further flights of the space shuttle fleet after determining that a large piece of insulating foam had broken off the external fuel tank of the Discovery shortly after liftoff Tuesday morning, the same problem that doomed the Columbia and its seven astronauts in the last mission, two and a half years ago."

SANS Institute - Top 20 - Q2 update 2005

SANS Institute - Top 20 - Q2 update 2005: "Home users face heightened risk from new vulnerabilities in iTunes and RealPlayer, along with a seemingly endless stream of new vulnerabilities in Microsofts Internet Explorer web browser."

Yet another report stating that you shouldn't use IE.

Google Moon - Lunar Landing Sites

What will Google think of next? :)

Make sure and zoom in as far as possible, to get a good look at the surface.

Flemings Ultimate Garage :: 1969 Chevrolet CAMARO Z28

Wow - I used to have a Camaro that looked something like this ('68 or '69 Super Sport - I also had a '67 Rally Sport before that). Mine was more customized. It also had a 500HP 454 in it, with a straight-line shifter and a racing cam.

It was fast, it was cool. A great car. I bought it in MT for $3500 I think. Sold it for $1500 after thieves at UofM broke into it a couple of times and the insurance would no longer cover it. Sniff :(

This one is selling for $38,900.

CNN.com - Lawmakers move to extend daylight-saving time - Jul 22, 2005

There are numerous things that I just "don't get" about this:

According to some senators, farmers complained that a two-month extension could adversely affect livestock

Unless I'm missing something... I really don't think the cows, chickens, etc. pay much attention to the time. I thought they just used the sun.

"The beauty of daylight-saving time is that it just makes everyone feel sunnier," said Markey

Well there is a good reason to go through the cost of changing a law, changing all the zoneinfo files on every computer system, etc. Anything so that we can feel "sunnier".

Upton noted that the extension means daylight-saving time will continue through Halloween, adding to safety. "Kids across the nation will soon rejoice," said Upton, because they'll have another hour of daylight trick-or-treating.

When I was a kid, we always waited till it was dark.

Like I said, I don't get it.

Spectacular Mammatus Clouds over Hastings, Nebraska

Wow... those look fake. God is a cool artist. :)

CNN.com - James Doohan, 'Star Trek's' Scotty, dead - Jul 20, 2005

Beam me up...

eBay item 5789263206 (Ends 20-Jul-05 14:15:15 BST) - Death Star Home Cinema Subwoofer

The things you'll find on eBay :)

New York Medicaid Fraud May Reach Into Billions - New York Times

Is so fun to be a taxpayer. :-S

Great comment on the waterfall methodology

In Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional)

In retrospect, the more we improved the practice of software engineering, the further we windened the gap between stakeholders and developers. The last step in the estrangement was the introduction of waterfall methodology, which embodies all the flaws of sequential development. Waterfall methodology gathers all the requirements, then creates the design, then writes the code, then develops and runs tests, and finally implements the system. Between each of these steps, or phases, were review meetings. Stakeholders were invited to these meetings to review the progress to date. At these meetings, developers and managers would ask customers, "Do these reuirements that we've gathered and the models that demoonstrate them constitue a full and accurate representation of what you want? Because once you say yes, it will be increasingly expensive for you to change your mind!" As you can see, this wording implies a contract between the customer and the developers. By this point, there was little in-person collaboration; in its place were contracts that said, "If you agree with what I showed you is the complete dsescription of your requirements, we will proceeed. If you don't agree, we'll continue to develope requirements until you give up!"

And that is pretty much how it works. As bad as it sounds in hindsight, it was a step forward and got us to where we are today with Agile, imo. Still - there are people that don't recognize the above and continue using it.

The 12-minute Windows heist: ZDNet Australia: News: Security

Actually I thought the time was less than that...

NASA - The Devils of Mars

A very cool article (click on title to see it) on Dust Devils on Mars. Its kind of long - make sure and scan the whole thing. I think the the video from 15-Mar-2005 is extremely cool. I know I'm in the technology sector - but its still very cool to me to watch a dust-devil spinning across the surface of mars - giving off electrical charges, from my browser. Cool stuff.

Gracie Allen Quotes - The Quotations Page

"When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half." Gracie Allen

I used to watch "Burns and Allen" all the time when we were on the road in the band. We'd usually turn in around 3 AM and I'd watch TV till 8AM or so. Old musicals, WWII movies, etc. The above quote sounds just like her. She was cool.

What's That Bug?

OK... so this site kind of creeps me out, but it still very cool. What's That Bug? has photos of all kinds of different bugs - and is kind of a 'dear what's that bug?" site. Readers send in photos to ask "Hey... found this hanging from my porch. That the heck is it?" :)