tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91353912024-03-06T20:58:22.254-08:00words of advice for young peopleBeing a collection of random observations, interesting and/or amusing links, and occasional original thoughts.SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.comBlogger212125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-80050347125933859992014-01-16T13:34:00.002-08:002014-01-16T13:34:41.456-08:00SSIS: 'to find this programmatically needs some circus'In 2005 Microsoft introduced SSIS, which is a nice friendly GUI interface for defining dataflows between systems. It replaced DTS, which was also a GUI interface, albeit quite a limited one that was a pain to get to do simple things (secure copy instead of FTP? GTFO.)
Like a lot of friendly GUI things, it's nice for the first 20 minutes you use it until the cracks start to show. Still, when SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-13947915595760673682013-11-01T19:35:00.001-07:002013-11-01T20:56:58.026-07:00'We're going to have congressional hearings about this project' - the Healthcare.gov problems trigger bad memories of a fucked up timeLately the problems of the Healthcare.gov site have been in the news. It is pretty much a disaster. A very large software project apparently was rushed out the door without adequate testing, and it didn't work as well as hoped. Also, Autumn followed Summer this year and at night the sun went down with commendable reliability. At any rate, the uproar about it and the tense hearings remind me of mySDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-76953902263624489642013-07-08T20:03:00.002-07:002013-07-08T20:13:14.254-07:00Free as in Beer: My Recent MOOC experienceI last sat in a conventional classroom in December of 1994. I was taking a Topology Final as a Ph.D. student (Mathematics, if you don't recognize 'Topology') at IU. I had already decided to quit the program and go find a job outside of the academic world, so why I was there is anybody's guess. I think I worried that an especially crappy grade would haunt me for the rest of my life.
So, for SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-88762847849498734292013-03-18T19:46:00.000-07:002013-03-18T19:55:38.342-07:00Keeping Louisville Retro: Louisville Arcade Expo 2013
Two posts ago I wrote about Ground Kontrol Arcade in Portland, a real 80s-era arcade. Today I'm writing about the Louisville Arcade Expo, which is a gathering for people who love video games from the late 70's to the consoles of the 90s. I am not necessarily meaning to turn this into a classic video games blog, but let's just see where things go.
The Louisville Arcade Expo has been happening SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-60329001584962243602012-12-16T18:37:00.003-08:002012-12-16T18:38:49.659-08:00Harry Potter and the Outdated Piece Of Shit Technology With Management SupportWe were having this discussion Friday, which is kind of sad. There is a politically favored technology in house that sucks ass, and we feel a great deal of motivation and satisfaction in demonstrating how our little team can blow it and the army of devs working with it out of the water using SQL Server and a bit of knowledge and expertise. For example, some doofus will spend 3 days trying to SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-22436626908520327572012-12-06T19:23:00.001-08:002012-12-16T18:45:56.152-08:00Ground Kontrol Arcade, a Great Place for Video Games and a Bad Place for ComedyOccasionally I get to travel for my job. I like that it's occasional, but on the other hand I would hate to never get a chance to travel. I've had jobs where I went nowhere both figuratively and literally. In this case, we're upgrading to SQL Server 2012 (from 2005), so some training was in order. Fortunately one of the cities where training was taking place was Portland, OR, a place I've wanted SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-18309299320780518982012-07-04T09:38:00.000-07:002012-07-04T09:41:22.899-07:00ROX 20th Anniversary show and general 90s nostalgiaLast night I went to the ROX 20th Anniversary Show at The Comedy Attic (Bloomington's comedy club known nationally as one of Todd Glass' 3 favorite comedy clubs, alongside Helium in Philadelphia and some other place). This was a proper reunion show as J (who lives in Montana now), B (who lives in New Orleans now), and XY (married to B and thus also in New Orleans) were all there. It was not like SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-12335312216133254512012-06-04T19:59:00.002-07:002012-06-04T19:59:18.474-07:00'Passion' revisited: Do what you like, not what you love.Some time ago I wrote about overuse and abuse of the word 'passionate'. For a while on the show 'The Crocodile Hunter', Steve Irwin (RIP) would say 'I am passionate about sharks', and I bought that, but when somebody says they are passionate about about the day job, I get the sense there's sort of a fake smile of desperation thing going on. It reminds me of when David Brent in the U.K. office SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-15791764887915233202011-06-09T18:30:00.000-07:002011-06-09T19:23:03.881-07:00I'm the guy whoWhen I used to run religiously, which if you read my blog you know I used to do, anytime I met a new person in my neighborhood, they'd recognize me and say 'you're the guy who's always running'. I could have been insulted by being reduced from the complex human being with thoughts and feelings and stuff to a guy running the 1.8 mile loop around our neighborhood non-stop like a character in an SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-48202204762504687622011-04-22T18:55:00.000-07:002011-04-22T19:35:41.520-07:00No dark sarcasm in the classroom.It was only a matter of time before we managed to make the jump from glorifying stupidity to villifying education and the people responsible to provide and give the children the educations. 'Is our children learning?', the President Bush asked, and it turn out when he ask that it was meant in the same way the question 'Are you drinking my milk from the fridge?' or 'Are you beating your wife?' SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-42944098541980387612011-03-14T18:49:00.000-07:002011-03-14T19:56:34.439-07:00Puppy Tweets UNLEASHED!I'm a hacker type, and recently I've become interested in circuit bending, so I like to make a trip to the Goodwill or other thrift stores from time to time to see if I can find some musical or noisemaking toys that can be 'bent'. Saturday I went with my daughter, and she strongly disapproved of a Barbie guitar I was looking at, so I was out of luck as far as musical toys went.As is sometimes theSDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-77914343139997957172011-02-03T19:19:00.000-08:002011-02-03T20:21:52.235-08:00Mystery Solutions To Famous Problems By Important MathematiciansI just finished reading 'Uncle Petros & Goldbach's Conjecture: A Novel of Mathematical Obsession', written by Apostolos Doxiadis, part of the team that brought us the wonderful graphic novel 'Logicomix: An Epic Search For Truth'.While Logicomix focuses on the great mathematician Bertrand Russell, his work, and his association with other great mathematicians of the early 20th Century, 'Uncle SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-90046515186879189982011-02-01T12:22:00.000-08:002011-02-01T14:34:40.537-08:00Facebook's Fakeness Makes Us Feel Worse, Comedians' Honesty Makes Us Feel Better'I see the people happy, so can it happen for me? 'Cos when I have no energy, there's nothing that can move me' -Kate Bush, 'Sat in Your Lap'Recently a group of Stanford scientists led by Alex Jordan published an article in the 'Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin' about a tendency people have to overestimate other people's happiness, which usually ends up leading to increased dejection SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-72968634836917827372011-01-23T18:29:00.000-08:002011-01-23T19:11:53.350-08:00I Will Never Eat These Things AgainToday I took my daughter to Target to go grocery shopping while my wife is in London and then Dublin for a week. We went because while we can manage on our own, we decided to get some pre-packaged, easy-to-fix foods (frozen pizza, frozen other things) to get us through the week. You are probably thinking, wow, what a bad Dad, and actually it gets worse. My 7yo daughter decided she wanted to try aSDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-44783784379147010552011-01-08T20:41:00.001-08:002011-01-10T17:23:03.934-08:00This year, I'll try to be more superficialThere's no point in running it into the ground anymore - my goals for 2010 have been covered and revisited. Overall, I did OK, but it was not the year things really happened for me. In the interest of looking forward, even though that way lies oblivion (it lies the other direction, too, only then I didn't know any better), here's what we'll be going for in 2011, which we've already been in for a SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-32278744128867902872010-11-28T14:52:00.000-08:002010-11-28T19:18:09.189-08:00'Something to offer besides waiting to die' or 'why do I live in Bloomington?'Yesterday on Twitter, @drewmckinney, aka the guy who wrote that cool DrivingBuddy iPhone app, wrote:Why be a tech professional in Bton instead of SF? "Bloomington is 58% cheaper than San Fran, housing is 81% cheaper"He linked to bestplaces.net, a handy site where you can find out for example if you are making $50,000 a year in Bloomington IN, how much would you need to make in San Francisco to SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-46224864309485468612010-11-24T19:05:00.000-08:002010-11-24T20:00:53.995-08:00I'm Thankful...I've been removed from all the 'Obama iz a seekrit Muslim' mass e-mail lists of relatives and colleagues...I don't have to fly this Thanksgiving weekend and endure 'gate rape' of myself, my wife and my daughter...my daughter is so cute and funny...my dog is both affectionate and ridiculous...my wife is beautiful, supportive, and funny...the people I spend the majority of my time with at work SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-79801724402633508132010-11-22T14:30:00.000-08:002010-11-22T14:40:01.925-08:00Neologism Squatting: these words/phrases are mineOraclown: clowns who use Oracle. Also, consultants from Oracle.I Googled this one, and I got a lot of results for a fish called an 'Ora Clown' (MySQL has the porpoise, now Oracle can have the Oraclown). I couldn't find anybody referring to Oracle-ites as Oraclowns, though. Surely somebody has thought of or used this?Scooby Dieu: the dog god of France. This one is nonsense, but it makes a nice SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-24359910990129782552010-11-03T13:04:00.000-07:002010-11-03T13:08:13.454-07:00'___ is like Jazz' No, it's not.I recall reading one of those 'change or be killed' stories about a guy who got fired from his job (I believe it was a journalism type job). He asked his employer 'Why are you firing me? Aren't I doing a good job? I'm producing a lot!'. His employer answered 'You are great at what you do. The thing is, what you do is like Classical Music, and we need Jazz. We need somebody who can do Jazz.'MyselfSDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-18674360261001287912010-09-16T18:53:00.000-07:002010-09-19T18:16:42.370-07:00LoL news scrolling thingyI recently attended the Mitch Altman/Jimmie Rodgers soldering workshop at Bloominglabs here in town. Both Jimmie and Mitch brought kits to sell, and I bought one of Altman's famous brain machines, and Jimmie's LoL Shield (lots of LEDs, lots of lights, lots of laffs) in the then brand-new extra bright blue.Once I'd put it together I had to do something with it other than the test pattern and the SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-74914373531468263882010-08-21T19:39:00.000-07:002010-12-11T16:25:45.765-08:00Steam-powered cars with the gardens in the backSome people were arguing on Twitter as to the sucks vs. rules category Steely Dan belong to, and one of the debaters linked to this essay from Donald Fagen about Science Fiction's impact on his youth: The Cortico-Thalamic Pause: Growing Up Sci-Fi.That Fagen was a sci-fi guy in his youth is not exactly a shocking revelation, especially those who've heard his 1993 solo album Kamakiriad. Leaving SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-91587023183135947542010-08-20T12:10:00.000-07:002010-08-20T12:14:30.677-07:00'I had always heard that building a word processor is one of the hardest things you can ever do as a software engineer.'So says this guy.That is probably a good test of a person's aptitude toward software engineering. If you can somehow look past the crushing and pointless dullness of developing yet another word processor and instead groove on the intrinsic challenge of the task, clearly you've found your spot in the world.Increasingly I am more and more interested in having some kind of concrete (useful or fun) SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-18436289786410759182010-07-03T18:50:00.000-07:002010-07-03T19:17:51.254-07:00Second Quarter ReportAt the beginning of the year I did a brief post about what seemed like good goals for 2010. This is something lots of people do. I am doing New Year's Resolutions wrong, though, because I followed up 3 months later, and am back to do it again 6 months later. This is turning into the 7up of self-absorbed blogging. Here we go now...1) Get out of the I.T. ghettoAs mentioned in our last entry, this SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-22721988234134739072010-06-13T18:04:00.000-07:002010-06-13T19:36:43.554-07:00This Book About the Atari 2600 Reminds Us That Programming These Days is Really Candy AssI recently read 'Racing The Beam: The Atari Video Computer System'. The book introduces a new field: 'platform studies', which sounds academic and dry, but if you are a technical person, what it is is a nice break from the told and re-told video game mythology those of us who came up in the era of classic video games (roughly the late 70's to the '83 crash) have heard and re-heard: the Pong coin SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9135391.post-88134301859028050302010-06-04T16:30:00.001-07:002012-03-01T13:09:12.008-08:00Not quite destroying Jah work: the least offensive attempts at reggae by non-JamaicansReggae is not for everyone. Unfortunately, over the years it has become associated with dorm room stoners and the likes of Ras Trent of 'Are You There Jah, It's me Ras Trent' fame.It doesn't really help that people unfamiliar with Jamaican patois only catch a few words and phrases ('Babylon', 'sensimilla', 'Jah', 'Selassie', 'I and I', 'mon', 'ting') and decide that reggae lyrics are written by SDChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06074492906736058141noreply@blogger.com0