The phrase I’m entitled to my opinion needs to be stricken from discourse. Unless your use of opinion can reasonably be used as a synonym for preference, then it is simply not true. Let me provide an example: If you are of the opinion that say—Oatmeal Raisin are the greatest of all cookies—then you and I disagree, clearly White Chocolate Chip Macadamia are greatest. Oatmeal Raisin is a perfectly acceptable cookie, but greatest?...
I used to really want a borescope. The problem back then was that they were very pricey (and I had less money, more mouths to feed, etc). I recently discovered though that the prices have come way down, so I bought one (on principal) off Amazon for about $40. Here is some video from sending the scope down the seat tube of my bike, to the area above the bottom bracket....
After nearly 14 years of Twitter, I’m calling it quits. Even before Musk took over, Twitter had become pretty awful; It was already a cesspool of hateful trolls, disinformation campaigns, wingnuts, and the aggrieved (basically, a sea of Karens, Kyries, Kanyes, and the odd Ted Cruz). Its algorithms work to fill your timeline with the content most likely to generate anxiety or rage. The point of which is to increase engagement—and it works—even knowing that this was the case wasn’t always enough to keep me from taking the bait....
The software previously hosting my blog was a bespoke thing that I’d used to experiment with Django. Once it was complete, my appetitite for maintaining it evaporated, and bitrot began to set in. I haven’t blogged in years, and it’s not likely that I’ll resume, but I thought I’d at least preserve what is here (this time using Hugo). Note: I did not preserve the link structure.
Next week is OUCE in Southampton UK, where I’ll be presenting on my recent work in time-series storage. I’ve never been to an OUCE, or Southampton, and I’m really looking forward to it. Since you get to Southampton via London (from here), and since I haven’t been back there in more than a year, I arranged to have a day or two there, and scored an opportunity to talk to the Cassandra London Meetup on Monday....
I had tentatively planned on attending OpenNMS Dev Jam this year, but then I got a new job, and it became mandatory. The eighth annual Dev Jam will be held June 23-28 at the University of Minnesota. NP: In Absentia, The Mars Volta
Datastax’s yearly Cassandra Summit has grown into a two day event this year, June 11-12 in San Francisco. If you are a user of Cassandra (or are considering it), then you probably want to attend this conference (use code SFSummit25 for 25% off). I’ll be there to present on virtual nodes; Find me if you want to chat about databases, network management, beer, or the Can’t Hug Every Cat phenomenon....
For the first time in several years I find myself working in Java again[1]. It occurs to me though that it probably isn’t anything about Java itself that rubs me so wrong, it’s the community or ecosystem if you will. The conventions, common practice, standards, frameworks, etc. Case in point, embedding third-party libraries. In the sane world, embedding code from another project into your own is considered Bad. The duplication is not only wasteful, but it creates all kinds of problems for developers, admins and users alike....
I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon take place with development projects at work, it happens when someone new steps in to take over a legacy system. Most projects generally have humble beginnings. Someone is tasked with a from-scratch implementation, often under the worst of circumstances, but ever thing has to start somewhere. Later, after the original engineer has moved on, someone new steps in to carry on development, and no time is wasted heaping criticism on what was done before....
I just upgraded a Cobalt RaQ 2 (1U MIPS machine, circa 1999(?)) from Debian Etch (released 2007) to Lenny (2009), and then from Lenny to Squeeze (2011). While it was in use. Remotely. Blindfolded, and with one arm behind my back.