But I really wish I could.
Enter TechShop. I wish there was a place where I could learn how to do stuff as well as do stuff like this; maybe someday they'll open a facility here in Minneapolis.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Petra Haden
I have a record she did a couple of years ago where she covered The Who's "The Who Sell Out"
. Here's a version she and her band did of Journey's Don't Stop Believing.
. Here's a version she and her band did of Journey's Don't Stop Believing.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
I'm posting from the future....
Yes, as you can see I've joined the smartphone revolution.
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Sent from my T-Mobile Sidekick®
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Sent from my T-Mobile Sidekick®
Monday, December 03, 2007
JBoss Seam is a s(t)eam(ing) pile
For the last 6 months at work, I've been using JBoss Seam. It's a framework that integrates JSF with EJB. Stateful session beans serve as controllers and JPA entities or hibernate entities serve as domain objects.
What attracted me to the platform was that it (appeared) to solve a number of problems:
The Object-Form element problem. That is, if you had a drop down in a page where a user had to select a product, the framework itself would generate the code necessary to tie the value of the dropdown in the HTML form to the live Java object representing that product, sitting on the server. This, based on past experience, would be a huge time saver.
The variable length field or set of formfields. This is where a user can essensially "grow" a form. One example at my last place was an application where a user had to provide a list of schools they had attended in the past. For each school, they had to provide a bunch of data: dates of attendance, city, and state. Within the framework I was using at that time(Struts) this was a VERY difficult task. Seam and JSF in general seemed to provide an easier way to accomplish this.
Ease of offering many different functions on the same page. Sometimes on a page, you'll want to present a user with multiple functions based on the same data: "Save and Continue" and "Save and Exit." While you can get Struts to do this, it's very ad hoc and repetitive(thus error prone). You've got to build a little controller into each action you want to do this in. With Seam and JSF in general, this is cake. It's just a different button with it's action attribute set to that other method.
In all but the last case, Seam was a failure. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, Object-Form stuff would break..and was not debuggable. Because there was no way to define a smaller "validation area" within a subset of the form, the variable length formfield really didn't work. On every submission, JSF forces the validation of every field on the page thus making shit weird.
In summary, Seam is like a 3 legged Greyhound: It looks good from far away and the right angles, but once you need it to run, it's simply lame.
So today I bought my second and third Ruby book.
What attracted me to the platform was that it (appeared) to solve a number of problems:
The Object-Form element problem. That is, if you had a drop down in a page where a user had to select a product, the framework itself would generate the code necessary to tie the value of the dropdown in the HTML form to the live Java object representing that product, sitting on the server. This, based on past experience, would be a huge time saver.
The variable length field or set of formfields. This is where a user can essensially "grow" a form. One example at my last place was an application where a user had to provide a list of schools they had attended in the past. For each school, they had to provide a bunch of data: dates of attendance, city, and state. Within the framework I was using at that time(Struts) this was a VERY difficult task. Seam and JSF in general seemed to provide an easier way to accomplish this.
Ease of offering many different functions on the same page. Sometimes on a page, you'll want to present a user with multiple functions based on the same data: "Save and Continue" and "Save and Exit." While you can get Struts to do this, it's very ad hoc and repetitive(thus error prone). You've got to build a little controller into each action you want to do this in. With Seam and JSF in general, this is cake. It's just a different button with it's action attribute set to that other method.
In all but the last case, Seam was a failure. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, Object-Form stuff would break..and was not debuggable. Because there was no way to define a smaller "validation area" within a subset of the form, the variable length formfield really didn't work. On every submission, JSF forces the validation of every field on the page thus making shit weird.
In summary, Seam is like a 3 legged Greyhound: It looks good from far away and the right angles, but once you need it to run, it's simply lame.
So today I bought my second and third Ruby book.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Judging us by our medical system, we're third world.
Patients Without Borders, NYT
This article talks about how charity medical groups (Remote Area Medical in particular) that used to operate internationally are beginning to see a huge need in America for their services.
We're a rich country. Something is going wrong when the American health care system is grouped with Guyana's, India's, and Tanzania's.
This article talks about how charity medical groups (Remote Area Medical in particular) that used to operate internationally are beginning to see a huge need in America for their services.
We're a rich country. Something is going wrong when the American health care system is grouped with Guyana's, India's, and Tanzania's.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
JBoss Seam: Lessons Learned
6 months ago I was so excited to be able to use my new favorite web framework at my new job.
6 months later I couldn't be more disappointed.
This framework is difficult to debug at it's weakest points(when it evaluates the JSF EL embedded into components) and isn't nearly as powerful as I thought it would be. It forces the interface of the application to closely shadow the relationships between different entities-which is problematic when they don't (or if they won't at some future revision/iteration).
Ultimately, I'm not sure whose fault it is: mine, for assuming this thing would be a magic bullet, Seam's for overselling itself, or JSF's for just sucking that hard.
6 months later I couldn't be more disappointed.
This framework is difficult to debug at it's weakest points(when it evaluates the JSF EL embedded into components) and isn't nearly as powerful as I thought it would be. It forces the interface of the application to closely shadow the relationships between different entities-which is problematic when they don't (or if they won't at some future revision/iteration).
Ultimately, I'm not sure whose fault it is: mine, for assuming this thing would be a magic bullet, Seam's for overselling itself, or JSF's for just sucking that hard.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Did you know....
That you can now watch Al Gore's "interactive" TV channel online? Well...now you do and here is the link.
Better than YouTube 'cept less Music Videos. But it does sometimes have crap reports you might disagree with (or not think that important ) like: Are iPods breaking apart society because we no longer talk to weirdos on the bus?
Better than YouTube 'cept less Music Videos. But it does sometimes have crap reports you might disagree with (or not think that important ) like: Are iPods breaking apart society because we no longer talk to weirdos on the bus?
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Follow up on my last post: Supercapitalism
In my last post ( and it's update ) I was having trouble articulating ( within my allotted 15 minutes ) what exactly it was I was feeling and why: Why Democracy and capitalism aren't necessarily complementary, and how that capitalism is now threatening our democracy and the common good.
Luckily, Robert Reich ( a professor of economics and a former Clinton labor secretary ) wrote a book on the subject. Here's a link to a review in the NYT. Here's a link to the first chapter.
Luckily, Robert Reich ( a professor of economics and a former Clinton labor secretary ) wrote a book on the subject. Here's a link to a review in the NYT. Here's a link to the first chapter.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Government buries an Airline Safety Study.....because it makes airlines look unsafe
This AP story is on a NASA study that shows dangerous in air incidents occur more often than thought...and how and why the government is trying to bury it.
Why did they shelve it? Because it would result in a decrease in airline consumer confidence and thus their profits.
Why would the government protect the airlines over it's own citizens? Airline deregulation took place over 30 years ago. Or so I thought.
Update:
I guess a Congressional subcommittee is going to look into it. Here's a link from the Times.
Why did they shelve it? Because it would result in a decrease in airline consumer confidence and thus their profits.
Why would the government protect the airlines over it's own citizens? Airline deregulation took place over 30 years ago. Or so I thought.
Update:
I guess a Congressional subcommittee is going to look into it. Here's a link from the Times.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Response to Katherine Kersten's Oct 3 Column-Critical Mass
A while ago I sent this in as a letter to the editor. It didn't get published so I'm posting it here.
In Katherine Kersten's October 3th column she discusses Critical Mass: a monthly bicycle ride through downtown Minneapolis. In her column she defines Critical Mass as a loosely organized group of people, and she is right to do so. However, the unconsidered side of her definition is that different people ride for different reasons: some of these are environmental and geopolitical and some ride to improve the condition of commuting cyclists. I consider myself in the last category and in this letter I will only attempt to speak for these riders.
Like most cyclists in this category, when I ride ( to work or in critical mass ) I try to follow the law: I ride to the right, I yield and stop when signage directs me to, signal my turns, and at night use lights. I also ride as cautiously and courteously as I can, when I can by riding on trails and low traffic streets and by wearing high visibility clothing ( the day-glow spandex isn't for fashion ). But like most other cyclists of my type, this hasn't kept me safe: for no reason I can understand people buzz, honk, yell names, throw things like rocks and full unopened pop cans at me, or worst of all don't even look for me at stop signs or lights.
While this happens only occasionally, why do people act like this? I don't know. I don't want to think most people are evil, so the only reason I can think of is because people don't know the law. So to me, CM and activities like it(like this letter) are the only way I can think of to inform them.
So while Kersten might not agree with the methods of Critical Mass, to me this is the goal. Do I wish some people were better behaved? Yeah I do. Intentionally blocking traffic is counterproductive to most of the rider's individual goals but what can I do about it? It's a loosely organized group of people. In the end I can only hope the word gets out: cycling isn't a crime.
In Katherine Kersten's October 3th column she discusses Critical Mass: a monthly bicycle ride through downtown Minneapolis. In her column she defines Critical Mass as a loosely organized group of people, and she is right to do so. However, the unconsidered side of her definition is that different people ride for different reasons: some of these are environmental and geopolitical and some ride to improve the condition of commuting cyclists. I consider myself in the last category and in this letter I will only attempt to speak for these riders.
Like most cyclists in this category, when I ride ( to work or in critical mass ) I try to follow the law: I ride to the right, I yield and stop when signage directs me to, signal my turns, and at night use lights. I also ride as cautiously and courteously as I can, when I can by riding on trails and low traffic streets and by wearing high visibility clothing ( the day-glow spandex isn't for fashion ). But like most other cyclists of my type, this hasn't kept me safe: for no reason I can understand people buzz, honk, yell names, throw things like rocks and full unopened pop cans at me, or worst of all don't even look for me at stop signs or lights.
While this happens only occasionally, why do people act like this? I don't know. I don't want to think most people are evil, so the only reason I can think of is because people don't know the law. So to me, CM and activities like it(like this letter) are the only way I can think of to inform them.
So while Kersten might not agree with the methods of Critical Mass, to me this is the goal. Do I wish some people were better behaved? Yeah I do. Intentionally blocking traffic is counterproductive to most of the rider's individual goals but what can I do about it? It's a loosely organized group of people. In the end I can only hope the word gets out: cycling isn't a crime.
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