Year: 2009

02/03/2009

Geek alert:

On Friday February 13 2009 at 04:31:30pm MST the Unix timestamp will be 1234567890.

That’s the number of seconds since the Unix epoch began (January 1 1970). I also used SSE (seconds since epoch) in all of my orbital analysis work back when I was a rocket scientist. Cool.

01/30/2009

I was working late the other night with a client who was doing a web site switchover, and managed to come up with a clever solution to his problem. He sent me an e-mail:

Nice one. Thanks Jeff.

I bet you know how to solve a Rubik’s cube too.

And of course I had to admit that yes, in fact I do know how to solve one. Then he threw down the gauntlet.

When I was a kid, I could get about 2/3 of the way through one of the algorithms, but then I would just get lost.  So when I stumbled on the cube on someone’s desk a few weeks back, my determination was reignited.  I’m no speed demon, but I’ve got the sequence down.  Takes me about 4 minutes right now.

Complete with photo!

So I dug around my closet a bit and unearthed the Cube that I had when I was a teenager (junior high, maybe?). I scrambled it a bit:

And then I went to work. It took a few practice runs to remember all of the moves, and then I had Laralee time me as I went for speed.

1:30. Oh yeah, the old man still has it.

01/28/2009

It looks like banking and financial CEO’s really took a hit on their bonuses in 2008. Apparently they dropped 44% from 2007, to a paltry $18.4 billion. It sure must be rough to be a bank CEO.

01/27/2009

As someone who’s never missed a mortgage payment, it infuriates me to read about how the Gov is bending over backward (with my tax dollars!) to help homeowners who got in over their heads. From an article I read today:

The Fed said it would consider reducing the interest rate paid on mortgages at risk of default, extending the term of the loan, and accepting a deferral or reduction of the outstanding principal balance of the loan.

So if you don’t (or can’t) pay your mortgage, don’t worry! The Fed will step in and drop your interest rate, extend the loan, and even pay off some of the principal for you. Whee!

I realize that people fall on hard times, and I realize losing your house is a big deal. But at the same time, it’s a travesty that people can’t take responsibility for their own finances. Today we just took one more step toward Socialist America.

01/26/2009

From an article about programming by Jeff Atwood:

Unlike applications, web applications are not released in one to three year cycles. They are updated every day, sometimes every hour. Rather than being finished paintings, they are sketches, continually being redrawn in response to new data.

I compare web applications to Von Kempelen’s famous hoax, the mechanical Turk, a 1770 mechanical chess playing machine with a man hidden inside. Web applications aren’t a hoax, but like the mechanical Turk, they do have a programmer inside. And that programmer is sketching away madly.

I like this because it’s so very true. The web sites I build change weekly, daily, sometimes hourly as customers ask for new features, minor tweaks, and other random changes. It’s fast-paced and exciting to watch a site evolve, but at the same time it’s dangerous territory for a programmer because a mistake instantly affects all kinds of users immediately. Whoops.

Many moons ago I did application programming and loved it, but I think I like web programming because it’s fast and dirty and just plain fun to slam out a new feature only hours after someone asks for it.

01/22/2009

Yay for Obama, who signed an executive order today ordering the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. The abuses conducted there are a national embarrassment and a sad legacy of the misguided Bush administration tactics against suspected terrorists.

It remains to be seen how the details will play out, but at least we’re heading in the right direction.

Finally.