Cooler than before the weekend, but it’s still Houston. Humid too. It was beautiful at the BOL. Mid 80s in the afternoon but with a cool breeze. Sunny and clear. I can hope that today will be similar, but that would be asking a lot. We’ll see how it goes.
Wrapped up my work at the BOL yesterday. Did a bunch more small stuff. Took one of the sliding patio doors off the track, cleaned and adjusted the rollers, replaced what I could. It works nicely again. It’s very worn, but they will all be replaced at some point.
Cut the grass, weed wacked, blew all the hard surfaces clear. Put everything away. Decided to take one more look a the irrigation pump to see if I could figure out why it lost prime. The check valve in the lake was working well. So I set up to backfill the line with water. This time, the answer was clear. The pipe had come loose from the discharge side of the pump. Oy. Given the lateness of the hour and a desire to not trudge up the hill to get my box of fittings, and a crazy idea that I should install a union fitting so the next time it needs to be removed it won’t require a saw and a repair fitting… I left it for the next visit and just shut off the controller. I’ll add a suitable union fitting to the shopping list. Maybe two fittings.
Today D2 has an orthodontist appointment in the morning, I’m supposed to get a load together for my auctioneer, and I’ve got to do a housecall for my client’s network issue. Wednesday I’m fasting in the morning for my PET scan in the afternoon, so I won’t want to do much, which means I better get my stuff done today.
Add an incipient cold to everything and I’m not feeling energetic and motivated. I almost always get sick if my nose is cold for any length of time, and it was while watching the movie. I started the Airborne last night. Runny nose and tiredness along with sneezing. joy.
Sleep will help. I’ll have to try to get some.
Some things you can’t stack. For everything else though, you should get busy…
nick
@markw:
I’m confused. I thought you had lived in UK for (at least) several years although you’re now in the States – this from previous posts of yours. So are you an ex-pat Brit, or were you an ex-pat Yank? Enquiring minds (mine at least) want to know.
G.
Maybe MarkW is neither a Brit nor an American but is instead … a grey! On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog or a bug-eyed space alien. Logic as taught in modern American schools says that if we can’t prove it isn’t true, it is true. QED
I’ll go with “bug-eyed space alien”. Although I see that there are various political proposals “for the children” to require positive ID to use social media. That would drive all of us bug-eyed aliens underground. Why does every bad political idea gets justified with “think of the children”? Because the politicians know it’s invasive and authoritarian?
I did a bunch of meta-programming today (i.e., code that writes code). For the techies out there, it is a really simplistic implementation of JPA: annotations that will automatically read/save data to a database. It was meant for an example in an advanced programming course, but on reflection, very few students can work at that level. I need a topic for that week. Still, it was a lot of fun to write – that’s my favorite kind of programming. Maybe I can make it optional or something…
Too much abstraction like JPA or CoreData makes the young’n’s oblivious about what’s happening at a low level.
I recently found my lead debugging a database issue by doing a binary dump of the SQLite file to look at the entries even though the sqlite3 command was available on the target system and, failing that, our development environments with the tool being a quick scp away.
I’m not sure he even knows SQL. I know enough to be dangerous.
I’ve done CoreData, but Spring/JPA jobs in the US are typically just advertised to justify a H1B or L1 application. I only know one American who has training and hands-on experience with that development platform.
Can you make a dumbed-down version for the students who can’t handle the full topic? Maybe by coding the first annotation yourself and letting the students do the grunt work for the others, or by providing a fully-coded set of annotations and telling them to modify them for “new requirements that the customer just gave us”. The more capable students can work on the real deal.
As I’ve mentioned a time or three, I’ve never taught a college-type class but I’ve put together and run a number of seminars and have mentored any number of fresh-out or junior developers. I think I’ve had better results – better understanding, better retention, larger increase in productivity – by giving a chunk of code and going through either debugging it or swapping in various C++ STL containers to compare performance or, and this was the big one, modify this mostly-working code for some new feature. Contrast with the normal academic approach of telling the students to write a program from scratch. It’s conceivable that this latter approach does a better job of cementing the concepts but I’d want to see the results of a study before conceding the point. I suspect that concepts and techniques continue to be taught that way because of academic inertia or because the “improve this code” method doesn’t scale to a full class (contrasted with a seminar with a dozen or fewer learners).
Ok, finally get to sit down.
Between normal getting ready for school, an early orthodontia appointment, and getting myself ready to face the world, it was a busy morning.
Overcast, threatening clouds, and chill in the air.
I’ve got to head over to my client’s house next but needed to pick up my lappy and notes.
n
“improve this code”
When I took a class titled “Software Engineering” in my Master’s program, it was also a compiler construction class.
We did it as teams. Step one was a lexical analyzer from scratch for a light version of Ada. We had a deadline and turned in our design documents, code, and test results. I wrote 100% of it before my teammates had a chance to step in.
Then the prof threw us a curve. Each team swapped with another team to write the rest, parsing and code generation.
We inherited a buggy analyzer, and fought it the whole time. I let the rest of the team work on the new code, and dedicated myself to debugging the code.
The team that got my parser thanked me when the semester was over…
Of course, the lesson we were being taught was not “how to build a compiler”. It was the reality of developing software in a multi-person, multi-team environment, and how code maintenance is the biggest part of the job, and the value of good design, interfaces, and documentation.
re: meta programming
I did a lot of that back in the old days.
Most system progarmming under VAX/VMS required you to work in elevated modes, which required you to write code snippets that would then run in the elevated mode, and sometimes those snippets wrote other snippets that would run back in user mode. An example is when you have one process that needs to monitor or peek inside the memory of another running process and return that data to the first process. It got confusing. All done in assembler, of course.
Also, I wrote DCL that wrote DCL. System management (what Unix folk call system admin) work sometimes used template procedures where tags were replaced inside, or whole new command files were created from scratch and then chained together.
Funny, I remember doing that, but today, 20 years later, I have no idea why that was a good idea.
Building a compiler should be a “capstone” assignment of a CS undergrad curriculum since it incorporates so much of what the ACM requires for program accreditation in the US, at least for now.
At CGI, the source code for the system I worked on was XML which was translated to Java to allow abstraction of certain concepts such as opening files, which can be wordy in Java.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if someone wasn’t pursuing Hot Skillz when work on the system began under the legacy company, AMS, back in the 90s, before their management sold them down the river to CGI.
Exactly! I hate programmers who just toss in yet-another-library or yet-another-framework. They aren’t “free”. Using external code has real costs in a project.
The point of my example is to show them what’s happening behind the curtain. It’s not magic, it’s just code. I have a parallel example showing how to achieve exactly the same thing with no JPA at all. It’s a decision, and personally, I almost always prefer to code it myself.
Still, very few will understand how the JPA implementation works…
The assignment that accompanies it is a much simpler annotation: Create a “todo” annotation that let’s you put notes in a Java file, attached to methods, or the class itself, or whatever. At runtime, fish out all the “todo” entries and print them. Pretty trivial, but I’m afraid that’s the level these students are at: “advanced programming for not-so-advanced programmers”. These folk aren’t in the pure CS track, they are in the “Business Information Systems” track, i.e., business with an IT emphasis. They should know what programming involves, but few of them will ever program again…
Some of them will turn into project managers, or requirements engineers, or some such. The goal is for them to know what the programmers need – and when to shut up and get out of the way.
Sure, in the first instance, you give them something they can modify or copy with small changes. Here’s a class about cars – now write a class about books. Slightly different attributes, slightly different names, but 90% is the same. Work from there to more complex stuff. Ultimately, though, they must be able to write simple programs based purely on requirements. That has to be the goal by the end of the first semester.
Took some video at Burgess Falls using the iPhone 15 Pro and the Blackmagic Design camera app. The app has image stabilization and I am very much impressed with the stabilization. Along with the improved camera sensors on the iPhone the videos are really amazing. Some of the best I have seen with an iPhone.
Anyone with an iPhone should get the Blackmagic Design video app. The price is really good, free.
Reports of many babies killed and beheaded in Israel by Hamas. I can’t even imagine that happening to one of my kids. The “Squad” lead by Shot Girl support Hamas. They should be taken out and shot. I hope Israel doesn’t fcuk around and levels Palestine.
Ref the reports coming out of Kuwait following Iraq’s invasion.
Believe nothing.
I still want the “Squad” shot.
Honestly, I don’t believe that. Things are dramatic enough without made-up nonsense. Treating the music festival as a target range, for example, is pretty well documented.
@SteveF
”Ref the reports coming out of Kuwait following Iraq’s invasion.
Believe nothing.”
Believe that the LSM is indignant that Twitter is allowing the Hamas selfie videos to be posted, and with good reasons.
”
“Young Israeli Parents Hid Twin Babies Before Being Murdered by Hamas; Twins Survived”
https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2023/10/09/young-israeli-parents-hid-twin-babies-before-being-murdered-by-hamas-twins-survived/
““Israeli troops rescued the unharmed babies about 14 hours later and handed them to their grandmother,” according to the report.”
Why did the father not have a machine gun to protect his family ? Every one in Israel lives in a war zone.
The reactions of some countries remind me of an essay from, I think, Pournelle’s “There will be war”.
The essay suggested that all civilized countries, who are also the ones funding the UN, should drop out. Form a new organization, only fund members of the new organization. Want to join? You must prove that your country is, in fact, civilized.
Let the barbarians rot, until they decide to stop being barbarians.
The amount of money Palastine (and Hama’s) had received is obscene. And they are definitely barbarians.
@nick, have you tested yourself for WuFlu? Just wondering if showing up symptomatic of ‘something’ could require your test to be rescheduled?
Sounds like a fine idea. US would not be eligible: rigged elections, political prisoners kept in solitary confinement, almost all cities containing large “no go” areas, no southern border…
… does not meet the definition of sovereign nation.
But best to start by kicking the UN the eff out of our country. Left a leftist craphole host it.
Oh, wait. . .
NYC under Democratic Mayor Adams. . .
Never mind.
Move it to the West Bank.
LOL plugs finally speaks after 14 Americans were murdered.
“Gonna send some ammo and missiles.”
How about every strike carrier we have? A Joint Task Force at the Corps level.
I wasn’t expecting to be talked about, and I haven’t caught up on comments yet.
I’m from Belfast, living in San Antonio.
They could turn it into an illegal aliens shelter … or Trump condominiums.
>> Even had a chance to fish for about half an hour.
Even provided amusement for the fish for about half an hour.
FIFY.
Would that be the Belfast on Betelgeuse’s fifth planet?
Why did the father not have a machine gun to protect his family ? Every one in Israel lives in a war zone.
If they come for your guns, do not let them take them. Hide some, fight back, do whatever it takes. Because they will come back for you and yours some day.
If they come for you and yours, do not let them take you without a fight. Never go with them, they will slowly torture you and yours until you wish you were dead.
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-brutal-reality-facing-hostages-in.html
@markw:
so, “…are an ex-pat Brit”. Thanks for that, I was wondering.
G.
“Stand by for squalls”
https://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2023/10/stand-by-for-squalls.html
“If things continue to go to hell in a handbasket in the Middle East, and the current conflict between Israel and Hamas widens, I fully expect that fifth column to go into action. That means all of us need to exercise greater care and attention, be more aware of potential threats, and upgrade our and our families’ personal security – facilities, equipment, habits and mindset – as far as possible. I’m not saying we need to become paranoid; but we certainly need to consider where we live, who lives among and around us, and what potential trouble spots might be seen by terrorists as “soft targets”. The latter is easily determined by looking at where they’ve struck in the past. Nightclubs, shopping malls, street festivals, mass sports events – all are potential targets with relatively low security that’s not hard for a trained person to bypass. We go there at our own risk.”
I have been pleasantly surprised that there has not been any terrorist action in the USA since 9/11. That means that it is long overdue.
“Texas AG Ken Paxton Files Criminal Complaint Over Alleged Doxxing by House Impeachment Managers”
https://valiantnews.com/2023/10/texas-ag-ken-paxton-files-criminal-complaint-over-alleged-doxxing-by-house-impeachment-managers/
“The term ‘doxxing’ refers to the act of publicly revealing previously private personal information about an individual without their consent. It is a practice that is widely condemned and can lead to serious consequences. In this case, the House Board of Managers stands accused of releasing a trove of documents related to Paxton, including potentially sensitive personal information, in early October.”
If this is true, then somebody needs to go to jail.
See also: release of Trump’s tax and other records
I have been pleasantly surprised that there has not been any terrorist action in the USA since 9/11. That means that it is long overdue.
BTW, Jan 6 was not a terrorist action. It was a protest that went violent.
George P. (Diddly) Bush is not going to jail, but my guess is that he’s ultimately responsible.
The Republicans in this state need to get their heads on straight with regard to the Bush cabal.
The Gerald Ford is enough to make the rubble bounce in Gaza if necessary.
https://twitter.com/margothaddad/status/1711756690574479651
English translation (via Google Translate):
That’s it, the information is out. It’s so macabre that no one wanted to give it until they had 100% confirmation. Infants and children under the age of 2 were beheaded by Hamas in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. It’s a horror, a massacre. For those who ask for the source. There are many of them: the Israeli army, the domestic intelligence service and the atrocious images that I was able to cross-check. But the best source remains this one: courageous journalists from the foreign press who were able to see/agree to see with their own eyes the bodies in Kfar Aza.
Let’s hope that ultimately this turns out to be only propaganda–but I don’t think that that’s the way to bet. 🙁
>> Let the barbarians rot, until they decide to stop being barbarians.
When two groups lay claim to the same piece of dirt, things can get really ugly.
Yes, there are other things going on in the world…
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bidens-choice-hunters-ex-colleague-whistleblower-post-raises-concerns-guarding-son-comer
It felt like that during the 70s and 80s…
“Isaac Asimov’s Vision Of The Future | Letterman”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIB1b_8hqB0
“The legendary science fiction writer shares his thoughts on the future of medicine, communications and more. (From “The David Letterman Show,” air date: 10/21/80)”
Interesting.
Which we’re not supposed to notice because … OMG HAMAS IS BEHEADING BABIES!
“In Israel, the usual personal weapon allowed are pistols with a limit of 50 rounds of ammunition.”
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/10/10/i-was-today-years-old-when-i-learned-only-2-of-israeli-households-have-weapons-n583708
quotes from The Times of Israel here:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-hamas-war-rages-personal-firearm-activists-see-surge-in-interest/
which includes this gem:
“It’s easy to give a weapon to someone who was trained in the IDF, but then if he is called to reserve duty, what does that help his family or community?” Rabbi Riz Blizovsky
Gee, do you think it might have made a difference is 350,000 citizens had firearms when the bad guys invaded? You know, before the IDF was called up?
So it’s okay to be stupid, as long as we don’t forget you after you’re gone?
WTF is anyone gong to do with 50 rounds of ammo? Take a bag of toys to the range and have 10 solid minutes of fun, fun, fun? Maybe spend the rest of an hour cutting little pieces of black masking tape into shape with fingernail scissors so you can save more money on targets?
Holy Ghost on a crutch.
“When two groups lay claim to the same piece of dirt, things can get really ugly.”
Especially if one group is a bunch of dirtbags.
Finished setting up the new laptop today. It arrived yesterday, and it took about 18 hours for Laplink to transfer all the apps and data from the now ‘old’ laptop via Wi-Fi. New computer doesn’t have an Ethernet port, which might have finished the transfer faster.
Laplink process was fairly easy. Ordered via Big River, downloaded and installed on both systems, started it up, and clicked a few buttons (after entering serial number) to get the transfer started.
Minor final tasks after Laplink finished. Final check for Win11 updates. Uninstalled a few things (McAfee, Office 365). Removing Office 365 may have borked the Office 2019 install, so had to reinstall that, but that only took about five minutes. (Found a ‘Groupon’ for Office 2021 [standalone version, not 365] for $25, so will install that later). Some minor changes to the task bar.
Installed Firefox (main browser). All settings from old system were moved over; some minor adjustments to the Firefox taskbar.
Next is to check data files. Old system had them all on the D drive. File Explorer may not have everything in the proper spot. But I’ve done a full backup of the D drive to an external drive, so easy enough to start the copy of that. Tasks for tomorrow.
And, all three books of the new thriller series are live today (on our 48th wedding anniversary). Look for the “RV Vigilante” series on Amazon here .
Kibbutz Nir Oz: Hamas Murdered A Grandmother, Then Posted The Murder On Her Facebook Page
https://legalinsurrection.com/
U.S. Based ‘Students For Justice In Palestine’ Praises ‘Historic’ Attacks on Israel, Calls for Campus ‘Day of Resistance’ Against ’Zionist Enemy’
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/10/u-s-based-students-for-justice-in-palestine-praises-historic-attacks-on-israel-calls-for-day-of-resistance-against-zionist-enemy/
Harvard Awarded 79% ‘A’ Grades in the 2020-2021 School Year
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/10/harvard-awarded-79-a-grades-in-the-2020-2021-school-year/
University education has become an underachieving leftist farce. Shut down the student loan program.
How about a campus day of resistance against the anti-semitic woke leftist scum?
@Rick, congrats on the launch, and on your anniversary.
@alan, if I don’t ask, I won’t have to tell…
$2300 copay.
———————-
Spent the afternoon at my client’s place.
Replaced the ubiquiti Nano 5ac link at the gate. It ended up upside down, and water entered along the cat cable… I installed a better mount this time. New switch was DOA from a sealed box. I was sure it was the PoE injector, or cable, or outlet, but all those checked fine. Put the old switch back for now.
Spent some time troubleshooting audio issues in the distributed whole house AV system and got it solved. Did some cleanup in the control system GUI. TRIED to get a long open issue resolved- got about 70% and hit a wall (my lack of knowledge, and a totally opaque approach to systems design.)
Had the TVs on the news during my testing and the video out of Israel is messed up. Savages. The media can’t hide their reflexive joohate and support for terrorists, even when mouthing condemnation. At least NBC is calling them terrorists, this time.
————————-
Got home late, had a ‘loose meat’ hamburger and some chips. I’ll have to fast for hours tomorrow, so I need to stoke the furnace…
n
“In Israel, the usual personal weapon allowed are pistols with a limit of 50 rounds of ammunition.”
https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/10/10/i-was-today-years-old-when-i-learned-only-2-of-israeli-households-have-weapons-n583708
Why ? Why ? Why ?
These people have lived in a war zone since 1948. Anyone who argues with that is foolish. Why did they not arm the populace ? Our founding fathers in the USA very carefully armed the populace so that tyrants like Biden would not take over the USA. The side benefit is that any one in their right mind is scared to invade the USA with a sharpshooter behind every rock.
My parents were in Israel a couple of decades ago over by the Golan Heights visiting one of my dad’s grad students for a week. Every day at noon they shot off a large howitzer cannon in the town square just to remind the Syrians that they were still there. My mother says she would go insane listening to that cannon seven days a week for years on end.
Nick suggested I use water to fully expose the partially buried cable. I did and it made the job much easier. Only spent two hours getting it under ground.
Didn’t sleep well last night. The night after I got the shot in my hip was the last time I had a problem sleeping. I don’t recall the previous time this happened. I usually drop right off and sleep until several hours when my blader gets me up.
Put more odds ‘n’ ends away, but I had to rearrange some pegboard layouts. I expected this to happen, and I know it going to happen again. Need to install the air compressor, then I can finish installing the air lines so I can mount a few more pieces of peg board and get things put away. I’ve got plastic totes I need to fill and throw away the falling apart cardboard boxes.
The large tool chest I was going to put in the office doesn’t quite fit, two inches too tall. I’ve got others so switching them around is probably going to happen. The mid ‘70s auto parts catalog stand also doesn’t fit under the TV, but I didn’t realize the stand is about 18 inches high when catalogs are in it. I could raise the TV which will let it fit where I planned to place it. Not a big deal; the TV would be a bit higher than I like with the bottom about 46 inches off the floor. Many TVs are over fireplace mantles and that’s about 54 inches in my house. (The bottom of my living room TV is about 34 inches off the floor.)
If I get up early and get going there is an estate sale I want to go tomorrow morning.
I have learned just today that Israel is very strict about gun control; you need to prove that you NEED one, and civilians can only get a handgun with a maximum of 50 rounds of ammo. Off-duty soldiers, of course, carry their issued machine gun, but reservists and civilians are targets. I’ve also read that this policy has been revoked within the last day, and that gun permits are being given more freely.
Talk about locking the barn door after the horse is gone.
@bob, glad the suggestion helped. I’ve uses a shop vac to remove soil too, when the area was more limited. Had to poke the ground with a stick while holding the nozzle in place but it was a great way to dig out a buried valve.
They make “pull down” mounts for TVs so they can live above the fireplace, but be lowered to a more comfortable viewing height when you want to watch a movie, etc.
————–
China – “let’s you and him fight” then they walk off with the girl. Once the US is in a two front military commitment, how long will Taiwan remain free? I think about 10 seconds past the point where the chinese control the fabs, thru violent and sudden military action, or coercion/corruption of staff.
n
Talk about locking the barn door after the horse is gone.
– yes, but the attacks continue, so there are still horses to protect.
n
We hope the horse is gone.
Once Israel begins the Gaza cleanup, Iran and all the other Muslims may decide it’s time to sweep over Israel once and for all.
In that case, every Israeli will be fighting tooth and nail for survival. Street by street, doorway by doorway.
And the sleeper teams of Muslim terrorists that have come in via Mexico over the last few years may wake up here to keep us from interfering.
Have I mentioned my range days and how relatively few in number the white Americans are at the range?
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to discover the cartel teams and the mid-Easterners have been training.
Have you been?
“Today I directed the Firearms Licensing Division to go on an emergency operation, in order to allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves,” Ben-Gvir detailed on X as the nation sought to prevent civilians from being caught defenseless for the duration of the threat. “The plan will take effect within 24 hours.”
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/10/09/too-little-too-late-israel-issues-emergency-directive-to-allow-citizens-to-arm-themselves-1402721/
Oh! Look! 100,000 9mm Glocks and ammo!Oh! Look! Unicorns and fairies!
Go with the one more likely to appear.
After being disarmed in WWII how did the Jews in Israel disarm themselves?
After being disarmed in WWII how did the Jews in Israel disarm themselves?
– “only ones” syndrome. Some group decides they are the “only ones” who can be trusted with weapons. They are the “only ones” with enough training, experience, judgement, need, blah blah blah. We get plenty of it here too.
Law enforcement, every single one of whom took an oath to defend the Constitution by and large think they are the only ones who should be allowed to carry. Ex military all too often think they are the only ones with enough training…
Funny that the very same Constitution and most of the state Constitutions call out We the people, which makes us the only ones in the whole world…
But having the guns give people the power and no one seems to want to be without power while denying that power to those they want power over.
n
I have a revolver and a .22 rifle. I have deferred buying at least one automatic and a bigger rifle. I am going to make those purchases “soon”. And much ammo. I couldn’t see the target the last time we went to the range. I’ll solve that somehow – maybe laser and optics.
Houston gun store employee shoots and kills a thief named ‘Evans’. His family objects.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/10/houston-gun-store-employee-charged-murder-after-gunning/
Mr. Gibson is a lying sack of shite and a p!ss poor lawyer. His statement misleads and misdirects, since the employee didn’t have to be acting in self defense. It IS legal in Texas to use deadly force in defense of property. It might not be wise, but it’s legal.
This case might not meet the requirements, or it might. IDK because this is the first I’m reading about it. But it’s like saying “I’m not going to talk about the B2 bomber…” Mr. Evans F’d Around, and Found Out.
And I’ve got no F’s left to give for criminals caught in the act.
n
>> ‘loose meat’ hamburger
Hmm, wild-caught or store-bought???
>> @alan, if I don’t ask, I won’t have to tell…
$2300 copay.
Fingers crossed for ya…
>> I have a revolver and a .22 rifle.
I had a revolver and a .22 rifle that unfortunately fell overboard last time I was out boating.
FIFY.
(You do have a boat, right??)