Monthly Archives: August 2010

Revisiting Code of Yore

August 30, 2010
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I’ve started a new job. I’m now working with some of smartest people I’ve ever worked with, an impressive lot. One of them I owe a lot. He was a former prof. And he still makes my head spin with how easily he handles technology and how it can be applied to the real world. But what really gets me is that he remembers everything be it technology from the 70s or technology from yesterday. And he knows how to apply it individually or in concert to any given problem. It’s made me do something I should have done a long time ago, take a step back. I’ve been so close to problems that I’ve just been running. Running to stand still, as the old saying goes. I think it was partially the environment I found myself in. I needed to focus on getting work in and out as quickly as possible that I would grasp onto the first reasonable solution and run with it. Luckily, most of the time it was the optimal or near-optimal solution. But sometimes it wasn’t. The other day I realized that a few technologies I haven’t used in years — decades — were possibly

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of Stars and Planets

August 25, 2010
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I’ve long had a fascination for astronomy. And, truth be told, it was the field of study I was hoping to enter. But European familial demands meant going into something that had a better chance of me getting a job. Besides, my dad said that no son of his was going to stay up all hours of the night staring through a telescope. No problem. He got a son who stays up all hours of the night staring at a computer screen. Oh, the irony. But I am employed, and I probably would have been as an astronomer, too. No matter. Of late I’ve been reading the news regarding discoveries of new planets. Fascinating stuff, to be honest. A tinge of jealousy strikes me with each passing article. But I choose to live this life of an astronomer vicariously. If I can’t do it myself, I can at least stay up on things sort of. I haven’t the hours to do so properly, maybe when I retire I’ll revisit it more fully but that is many years away. The most interesting thing about these planetary discoveries around those far flung stars is that most — if not all — of

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Of 120 Page Phone Bills

August 17, 2010
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I’m here to tell you of an event in our household that I thought I’d never see: a 120 page telephone bill. You read that right. 120 pages. And, yes, I’m talking 8 1/2 x 11 inch pages. Now, it’s not the horror story it might appear, although if delivered via Canada Post it surely would have arrived in a box and would have been photographed for posterity. No. It came in electronically. Who’s bill is this? My daughters. And, what, pray tell is on that 120 pages? Well, I can say there are more than 5 hours of talking. That’s right. 5 hours of yakking on her iPhone. In one month. There’s also nearly 7000 text messages. And Bell has kindly provided each one its own line item on her bill so she can examine it in all its glory, when it was sent, to whom, how long, etc. The only thing that would have made the bill more entertaining would have been if Bell had kindly documented the actual texts, and not just provided the litany of connections. But then the bill would probably be 500 pages. And in today’s day and age, she could probably have published

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Musings

A blog of my musings. Some folks find it interesting and so I continue. Hopefully it will remain fairly interesting. At worst, it'll keep me writing orthogonally to my day job.

Month at a Glance

August 2010
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