The Blog of Harald

I saw them, I had to share. With everyone! Mu ha ha!

“Irregular Webcomic 1356”:http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1356.html

Rands In Repose: Trickle Theory

bq. My advice is: START.
“But Rands… I’ve got three hundred tests to run and one day to…”
Stop. Go run one test. Now.
“Wait, wait, wait. Rands. Listen. They need this spec tomorrow @ 9am….”
Shush. Quiet. Go write. Just a paragraph. Now.
Welcome to Trickle Theory.

I first encountered this in the context of ripping CDs. A friend had a huge CD collection that he wanted as MP3s. He’d take 6-7 discs to work every day and rip them on his laptop while working on his desktop. The whole process took three months, but it got done, a Trickle at a time.

I’m currently working through creating a patch description in our patch tracking database. There are over a 100 defects, and each one takes about 5 minutes to process through the system. So I do 5 or 10 a day. As of today, I have 20 left.

Go read up on Trickle Theory. It works.

“UNIX – The Hole Hawg”:http://www.team.net/mjb/hawg.html – I’ve been a UNIX person since I started university, what, 22 years ago now?

My “new favourite show”:http://www.tv.com/eureka/show/58448/summary.html has a products page!

Made in Eureka

I want a laptop transporter :-)

TheStar.com – Cape Breton joins space race

They’re building a private launch facility in Cape Breton, launches planned by 2009 or 2010.

I wonder if they need any network security people? :-)

Kung Fu Monkey- “Wait, Aren’t You Scared?”

bq. Errr, no. And if you are, you frankly should be a little goddam embarrassed.

bq. marvel as cool, well-trained, ruthless law-enforcement professionals — who spent decades honing their craft chasing my IRA cousins — execute their job magnificently.

Schneier on Security- Last Week’s Terrorism Arrests

bq. None of the airplane security measures implemented because of 9/11 — no-fly lists, secondary screening, prohibitions against pocket knives and corkscrews — had anything to do with last week’s arrests. And they wouldn’t have prevented the planned attacks, had the terrorists not been arrested. A national ID card wouldn’t have made a difference, either.

bq. Instead, the arrests are a victory for old-fashioned intelligence and investigation.

Schneier can be a bit heavy-handed with his analyses, but I don’t think he’s wrong…

globeandmail.com – The $2-million comma

bq. This agreement shall be effective from the date it is made and shall continue in force for a period of five (5) years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five (5) year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.

From a contract between Rogers Communications Inc. and Aliant Inc. for the placement of cable lines in Eastern Canada. Aliant cancelled the initial 5 year term in 2005 after only 3 years. The cancellation will force Rogers to pay an extra $2.13 million to use utility poles. The placement of the second comma in the sentence above permitted the contract’s cancellation, to the surprise of Rogers.

(via the “Quotation of the Day”:http://ca.geocities.com/quotationoftheday/index.html mailing list)

Forget the fake crap that passes for Reality TV these days! “I am Moving to Japan”:http://dogbonesbackyard.blogspot.com/2006/07/i-am-moving-to-japan.html links to a Japanese show presenting a game show done right; make a mistake, get hit in the nuts!

(Ya, ok, it’s not real. it’s actually a comedy team, but the idea is sound. And the inner conflict between cringing in sympathy and laughing ’til you pee is good, too!)

The WindFire Designs Pointer Kite

“Reid”:http://rae.tnir.org/ bugged me about documenting the tools I use for photo processing and publishing:

“Irfanview”:http://www.irfanview.com/ Thumbnails – autorotate. Irfanview is a very good image viewer for Windows. I’ve always used the lossless jpeg rotator in the package. Recent versions have been shipping with Irfanview Thumbnails, which lets me do bulk autorate of my photos, based on the EXIF orientation flag which is set by an orientation sensor in both of our cameras.

“Picasa”:http://picasa.google.com/ – photo management. I discovered Picasa when Google first bought it; I love both the photo browsing interface and the builtin “simple” photo editing tools, which do a surprisingly good job of basic edits (light balance, crops, etc.). One thing I like is that Picasa always keeps your original photo; any edits can be undone, even months later.

“Flickr”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/chkoch/, “Gallery”:http://gallery.menalto.com/, “Picasa Web”:http://picasaweb.google.com/harald.koch, Rogers Photos – publishing. I use each for different things. Flickr has the advantage of social networking; my friends see my pictures because they have friended me. Gallery runs on my server, and I use it for blog images (including for the “rpg blogs”:http://www.cfrq.net/~rolemaster/). Picasa Web is new from Picasa/Google; not sure if I like it yet, but it does make publishing from Picasa trivial. And Rogers Photos I use because of the “unlimited” storage for bulk pictures, like those from kite flying events.

“Unison”:http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ – sync/backup to the main fileserver. Unison is a bidirectional file synchronization program, like rsync but it moves files in both directions, resolving conflicts appropriately. I use it so that the photo collection can be stored and edited on all four computers around here, without (too many) conflicts.

“Nero”:http://www.nero.com/ – backup to CD / DVD. Mentioned for completeness, and because the Roxio package that comes with the Compaq’s -sucks- doesn’t work for me (Nero came with both of my DVD writers).

“Ubuntu Dapper”:http://www.ubuntu.com/ – fileserver. Also mentioned for completeness :-). The fileserver currently has 200Gb of disk, but it’s filling up again; I have a pair of 320GB drives on order, with plans to RAID-1 them together.

HP PhotoSmart 7960 – printing :-). I love this printer, even though it’s not available anymore (the new Vivera-based HP PhotoSmart printers like the 8250 are even better, from what I’ve seen). The output quality is awesome. I also have an HP LaserJet 1020 for day-to-day printing; saves wear-and-tear (and ink!).

has everything:

“Monty Python’s Camelot on the Starship Enterprise”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptx98LTGyfE

Bored?

“http://n.nfshost.com/”:http://n.nfshost.com/

They gradually get harder. This may eat up your day. Enjoy!

(via “Catspaw”:http://insanecats.com/cgi-bin/single.py?month=jul06&msg=14).

*Update:* I’m stuck going from 25 to 26.

Someone sent me a link to this video:

Incredible Machines – Google Video

It’s a series of short videos of Rube Goldberg type machines; apparently they were submissions to an advertising contest. Some of the mechanisms are pretty cool!

“Anita”:http://the_nita.livejournal.com/ sent me this:

Academie Duello presents – Modern uses for Historical Swordplay

Will you be ready?

I found it wonderfully ironic that this appeared in my inbox on the same day that we are moving into a new cubicle farm:

Schneier on Security: Cubicle Farms are a Terrorism Risk

Maybe I’m a magpie, but I think that “Google Finance”:http://www.google.com/finance?q=HPQ&btnG=Search is tres cool…

“The problem with Space Elevators”:http://nikon.bungie.org/misc/stuntmutt.html?type=main&image=187

(The joke doesn’t work for me in Firefox, because I’m missing a plugin :-(

What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Or, as catspaw puts it, “Why do we love to hate”:http://insanecats.com/cgi-bin/single.py?month=feb06&msg=10?

bq. [stock options are] like my boyfriend’s idea of giving me a diamond. He puts a lump of coal in my hand, tells me to squeeze real tight and be PATIENT.

from Sand Hill Slave