Ness’ Outpost

Joel Spolsky - from the fame of joelonsoftware.com fame has published an article about “JavaSchools”.

“JavaSchools” are the Universities and Colleges that have migrated their curiculum to a Java only environment. I would extend that (pun intended) to include .Net tools as well though Mr. Spolsky doesn’t take it that far. These are the schools who are more interested in teaching students how to use technologies instead of how to think and develop their own solutions.

I think Joel sums things up pretty well. Learning how to do something difficult is often more rewarding than just having something handed to you, especally when things start to go wrong. Joel has a different frame of mind though as someone wishing to hire new grads he’s looking for people who can solve problems, not work within the framework.

I suggest you read his article.

I have a little black book that I use to track my fuel and maintenance logs for my vehicle. Since I’m a computer guy I should be able to do better than old non-interactive paper logs.

So I started creating a database application to track vehicle information. Right now it focuses on fuel data since that’s all I’ve generated so far. But as maintenance information starts to be generated by my car I’ll want to know where and when my last oil change was. Or how many kilometers (or miles) since my last alignment.

I’ve OS’d the very small portion of code I’ve churned out so far, but have yet to settle on a license. I’m thinking FreeBSD or Apache style license, but not GNU. I’m interested to see where the GNU is going to go with their next iteration.

The code is in my subversion repository and can be pulled by any SVN client from

https://code.nesser.org/svn/trunk/VehicleLog/
If you just want to browse and not hack on the source there is a web interface for the repository.

The inital direction I plan on going in this project is outlined in the README file, but of course things can always change. I like the idea of email reminders and other types of notifications though.

I’ve learned an important lesson today.

I cannot wrap a present that is fit for presentation.

The good news is that by handing a gift to a loved one that looks like it’s been run over by a few reindeer, an elf or two and Santa’s Humvee the gift inside is elevated to the next level once the non-protective covering is removed.

For example, a pair of socks wrapped up nicely with a bow and matching paper is kind of a let down after the excellent presentation of the giver. BUT when you find a pair of socks in a package that looks like a toddler has been gnawing on it for two weeks - that gift is a festive surprise!
There are not any high hopes attached to the gift. The reciever is simply glad the gift wasn’t last years fruit cake covered in a thick layer of varathane and ready to be used for a hockey puck.

Seasons Greetings!

What costs more?

• The 407
• My time, gas from idling in traffic and the frustration traffic brings

I’ll find out tonight.

I saw this post on /. today and had to check it out. The Christmas season is coming and if you want to get your favorite keyboard jocky something to read over the holidays here is a pretty good selection.

http://www.simtec.co.uk/appnotes/AN0017/

Personally I could do without the UML, design patterns and stuff like that. But I really do want to own Knuths volumes, that’s on my list. Replace CVS with SVN, throw in Code Complete and a few more books like “Hackers and Painters” and you’ve got a pretty good shelf.

I’m going to have to take my own photo once I get all my books in one place. They are distributed over multiple sites and some are on loan right now too. I’m down with the swapping of books on a borrowed basis.

Where do I want to go today? Milton! I spent today just driving around the city and getting my bearings.

Sounds fun doesn’t it? But it’s neat for me because when I leave for work it’s dark. When I leave work to come home - it’s dark again. So all I see are street lights. It is amazing how different the area is when the sun is illuminating it.

There still isn’t much more than just homes, but I found the beer store. Just go to the Anglican Church and turn right on Main Street. I also found the hospital in case of emergencies and the grocery stores and coffee shops. Key features of any growing city.

Now I’m going to settle in, flip on the fire and watch some DVD’s. Maybe some old school first season Simpsons or some Firefly episodes.

I had a ticking noise in my breaks when they were applied heavily. The tick frequency was linked to the rpm’s of the wheel so I figured it was the breaks or the suspension on the back. Ron - who has kindly taken me under his wing and is showing me things I could never learn on my own about cars - tossed it up in his garage and first we looked at the muffler. It is attached to the underbody with a bracket and rubber gasket which is supposed to allow for vibrations. Ron added a pin on the end to make sure the rubber gasket couldn’t vibrate off. It could have been making the noise, but wasn’t.

Next we pulled off the back wheels and looked inside the drum breaks. The wear patterns on the left rear wheel were even in the centre of the curved pads - about 1″ not making contact above and below the pads. The right rear drum was making contact at the very top of the pads and had about an inch and a half of untouched pads at the bottom. Ron suggested the drums might not be perfectly round so we swapped the left and right drums in the back and now the ticking is gone! I’ll have to see what the new wear patterns are in a few weeks if the ticking starts up again.

For Christmas my parents bought me an Easton composite one-piece hockey stick. This is one present that is going to get used well before December 25th since I broke my stick last week. The experiment now is to see if I am able to amortize the $80 investment over the life of four $20 hockey sticks. I’ll leave it to the reader to figure out depreciation and the cost of breaking in 4 new sticks instead of just one. Of course if it snaps within a year that was a bad investment. You can assume 2 hockey sticks per year.