JavaScript Function Invocation...

A nice article by Yehuda Katz on a subject many JavaScript programmers don't really understand...

Public Data Visualizer...

Here's a fascinating tool from Google that lets you visualize quite a few different sets of publicly-available data.  At right is a snapshot of fertility rates for some countries I picked, along with the world as a whole.  Note how the world's fertility rate is falling inexorably toward the “replacement rate” of 2.1 (the point at which the population stops growing).

When you click onto the tool, click on the box that says “Fertility Rate” to change what data set you're looking at.  Pick the countries you'd like to see on the check-box list at the left...

Art of Assembly Language - Online...

Here...

Open Office and Your Brain...

When I work at my company's offices, I work in an “open office” environment.  This is an area (a room with just three sides) about 30' by 15', with nine people working in it on tables.  Each of us has a fairly small area, perhaps 30" wide by 24" deep.  It works well for some things, especially when multiple people are collaborating on the same thing.  I find it nearly impossible to concentrate on programming while there, however – there are innumerable interruptions and distractions that keep me from the kind of deep, sustained focus in which I am most productive. 

Here's someone else with similar observations.

I observe, though, that some people seem to be almost immune to problems I encounter.  This immunity is definitely more prevalent amongst younger people.  I don't know whether it's actually age-related, cultural, or training.  My cure is to work from home as much as possible – there I actually stand a chance of sustained focus for hours at a stretch.  I balance this with days at the office, where I can be available to teach and help others (and I can get help from others).  If the balance was to be determined purely by my own personal productivity, I'd probably work from home 80% to 90% of the time.  But that is not the case; some of the value I supply to my employer depends on my being available for other people, and it's a challenge to figure out where the right balance is when including that factor...

Opportunity on Spirit Point...

The plucky little Martian explorer Opportunity has arrived at Spirit Point, named after it's sibling spacecraft now presumed dead on the other side of Mars.  Spirit Point overlooks Endeavour Crater, where Opportunity will likely be working for years.

If you've forgotten all about Spirit and Opportunity, here's a reminder: they landed on Mars in 2003, and were designed to be operational for just 3 months.  Spirit lasted 7 years (it died last fall) and Opportunity is still going strong 8 years later.  Much of the credit for this unexpected longevity is due to the design team, but some of it is just plain luck: it turns out that the dust devils that frequently whisk across the Martian surface keep the explorers' solar panels relatively free of dust.  Prior to the actual mission, engineers were expecting the red Martian dust to slowly accumulate on the solar panels.  This would slowly reduce their power output until finally the explorers would run out of juice.  The entire team was surprised – very pleasantly! – that the unpredictable dust devils have been coming along frequently enough to blow the panels clean well before the explorers ran out of juice...

The Debt Pool...

Another of the entries in the Powerline blog contest:

Bobcat Babies!

Don and Jan Maxted (I think from Deerhorn Valley, in rural Jamul) have a bobcat family living near them.  Don got this beautiful photo.

We've missed our bobcats, whose local population was decimated when the 2007 fires killed many of them and their prey.  I sure hope this is an omen of their return!  We sure have plenty of varmints out here for them to eat...

More Obscure Linux Commands...

Several of these look interesting, but especially mytop...

Jamul Casino Update...

The latest Lakes Entertainment report is out, and it's more of the same sad story.  They're slowly writing off their investment as time goes by with no progress.

Hooray for no progress!

Is Obama Smart?

Bret Stephens has a piece in today's WSJ titled Is Obama Smart?  Here's his conclusion:

Then there's his habit of never trimming his sails, much less tacking to the prevailing wind. When Bill Clinton got hammered on health care, he reverted to centrist course and passed welfare reform. When it looked like the Iraq war was going to be lost, George Bush fired Don Rumsfeld and ordered the surge.

Mr. Obama, by contrast, appears to consider himself immune from error. Perhaps this explains why he has now doubled down on Heckuva Job Geithner. It also explains his insulting and politically inept habit of suggesting—whether the issue is health care, or Arab-Israeli peace, or change we can believe in at some point in God's good time—that the fault always lies in the failure of his audiences to listen attentively. It doesn't. In politics, a failure of communication is always the fault of the communicator.

Much of the media has spent the past decade obsessing about the malapropisms of George W. Bush, the ignorance of Sarah Palin, and perhaps soon the stupidity of Rick Perry. Nothing is so typical of middling minds than to harp on the intellectual deficiencies of the slightly less smart and considerably more successful.

But it takes actual smarts to understand that glibness and self-belief are not sufficient proof of genuine intelligence. Stupid is as stupid does, said the great philosopher Forrest Gump. The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does.

This is very reminiscent of the whole Jimmy Carter experience. The “elites” at the time raved about him as the smartest president ever – the same unlikely label many have been putting on the office's current occupant...

Congresscritters...

From my cousin Mike D.:

Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz is 72 years old. Today, if Dorothy were to encounter men with:

   no brains,
   no hearts,
   and no courage...

she wouldn't be in Oz - she'd be in Congress.

Zing!

A Fitting Symbol...

Via reader Doug S., this gem: the logo for the Smithsonian Institution's new blog, “Department of Innovation”.  Note that the Smithsonian Institution is government-sponsored (and funded).

Look at that logo carefully.  The three gears are arranged such that they can't possibly move in any direction.

Is that a perfect symbol for our federal government or what???

The Demise of the Low Level Programmer...

Andy Firth writes:

Over the last decade I’ve been involved in the hiring process at many studios and in more recent years I’ve noticed a pattern. Knowledge of what is generally considered “low-level” programming is waning. Many programmers know enough to get through a C# or C++ test, but don’t understand something as basic (and important) as the behavior of memory or god forbid a cache. They don’t seem to grasp that one must understand the native environment you’re working in before going ahead and writing a program to run within it. The intricacies of floating point vs fixed point math are completely lost on them as the term “fixed point” brings about a blank stare; floating point numbers are best right?. I once mentioned bit shifting to an experienced engineer of 10 years and was devastated by the complete lack of basic understanding.

He's echoing my thoughts, recorded here in quite a few posts...

Estonia vs. America...

As long-time blog readers know, I have visited little Estonia many times.  When I first visited in 1992, it was an economic wreck – only in its first year as an ex-Soviet satellite nation, and struggling with basic concepts of capitalism.  Over the years that I visited there (last time in 2004), the country adopted an enlightened tax policy, established the firm rule of law, and enacted legislation that created a very business-friendly environment.  Somehow, miraculously, they've also had a series of leaders that were not only not disastrous, but in some cases were downright visionary.

So it's interesting to look at how they fared in the recession of 2008:

In the midst of a world embroiled in economic turmoil, a few nations have managed to do surprisingly well—among them, Estonia. After near economic collapse during the 2008–2009 financial crisis, the country has managed to successfully bounce back with substantial GDP growth, a vibrant trade environment, and a notable budget surplus.

I'm not surprised, actually.

Here's a bet for you: Estonia will be amongst the first to opt out of the European Union.  The looming disaster there is going to look very ominous to one of the few high-performance economies in the EU – and given their tiny size, it's easy to predict that they'll be asked to shoulder a completely disproportionate share of the EU's miseries...

Humming Hummers...

The little fellow at right is a male black-chinned hummingbird.  I managed to catch him at the right angle to see the bright purple iridescent band around his neck (at most angles, it looks black).  This is a very common hummingbird around here.  It's slightly smaller than the other three species we see, and vastly more aggressive.

Many of the individual male black-chinned hummers have another interesting habit: they eat from our feeders without ever landing on them.  You can see this behavior at left.  This is the same individual shown hovering above right – but note that from this slightly different angle you can not see the purple band.  Sometimes they'll hover in the same position as at left for 45 seconds, apparently guzzling the whole time.  It's avian mid-air refueling!  Only very rarely do we see any of the other species exhibiting this behavior...

An Accidental Sunflower...

Out near our bird feeders we have a small sunflower plant, currently sporting about a dozen blooms.  Almost certainly it sprouted from the “sterilized” sunflower seed we buy as bird food.  We haven't pulled it for two reasons: we enjoy the cheerful flowers, and the birds use it for both perching and food.  We've seen about eight species on it, but primarily hummingbirds and house finches...

Oh, Happy Dogs!

How do you get four bad dogs to sit still for a moment?  You train them.  In particular, you teach them that they have to sit still, until called, if they want to get their afternoon meal.  And trust me, they really want their afternoon meal!  Left-to-right (click to enlarge), meet Race, Mo'i, Miki, and Lea.  All sitting oh-so-nicely until Debbie puts their food down and calls them, one at a time.

What happens after that?  Well, if you look at this picture (at left) closely you can pick up some distinct differences in their behavior.  This photo was taken at 1/100th of a second.  Note that Race (upper right hand corner) is blurred – that's because he eats as though his life depends on getting his kibble into his stomach as quickly as possible.  He attacks his food like a rabid badger.  But Miki (lower left) actually eats even faster than Race – but he's much more methodical and efficient about it, like a furry vacuum cleaner, slurping up the food.  Then he takes his time licking his bowl until it gleams like a freshly-detailed car.  Mo'i (lower right) attacks his food with vigor, but with much thought.  Stuff goes everywhere while he's eating, so some bits of kibble pass through his mouth multiple times.  From his perspective, that's probably a good thing.  Finally there's Lea (upper left).  She eats her food at about 1/3 the speed of the others.  She pauses frequently to growl preemptively at her fellow munchers, and we think that's her main pleasure in eating.  Eventually, after everybody else wanders away, she'll finish her meal.  We have no doubt that she has regrets when the meal is finished – not because the food is gone, but because the opportunity to growl at the others has ended...

An Old Lady's Problem...

Via my mom:

When I went to lunch today, I noticed an old lady sitting on a park bench sobbing her eyes out. I stopped and asked her what was wrong. She said, 'I have a 22 year old husband at home. He makes love to me every morning and then gets up and makes me pancakes, sausage, fresh fruit and freshly ground coffee.' I said, 'Well, then why are you crying?'

She said, 'He makes me homemade soup for lunch and my favorite brownies and then makes love to me for half the afternoon. I said, 'Well, why are you crying?'

She said, 'For dinner he makes me a gourmet meal with wine and my favorite dessert and then makes love to me until 2:00 a.m.' I said,'Well, why in the world would you be crying?'

She said, 'I can't remember where I live!'

My mom says: “I want one of those!”

All at Once...

Attack all viri in one fell swoop?  If they can make this work, it will most definitely change the world...

The Great Orator?

Peggy Noonan does a takedown of Obama's oratorical self-image.  The conclusion:

The president has been obsessing on Ronald Reagan the past few months, referring to him in private and attempting to use him to buttress his position in public. They say Republicans can't get over Reagan, but really it's Democrats who aren't over him, and who draw the wrong lessons from his success. Reagan himself never bragged about his ability to convince the American people. He'd never point a finger and say: "I'll go to the people and grind you to dust." He thought speaking was a big part of leadership, but only part, and in his farewell address he went out of his way to say he never thought of himself as a great communicator. He thought he simply communicated great things—essentially, the vision of the founders as applied to current circumstances.

Democrats were sure Reagan was wrong, so they explained his success to themselves by believing that it all came down to some kind of magical formula involving his inexplicably powerful speeches. They misdefined his powers and saddled themselves with an unrealistic faith in the power of speaking.

But speeches aren't magic. A speech is only as good as the ideas it advances. Reagan had good ideas. Obama does not.

The debt ceiling crisis revealed Mr. Obama's speeches as rhetorical kryptonite. It is the substance that repels the listener.

Zing!  That's gotta hurt...