Month: March 2008

The Cycle Completes

120 minutes left in what is the last vestige of my previous life. The doors close at 5:00 p.m. and I will walk out of them for the last time as an employee of this institution. I can’t say as I’m totally happy about the situation. I can say that it will be nice to not have to fight for every inch of a project’s development—if for no other reason that I’ll no longer be working on my project. There was a lot I had planned and to see it go unimplemented is sad. Could I have done a better job selling it? Would it have mattered?

Alas and alackady…

The boxes are packed, the good-byes said, there’s just 115 minutes left between me and the rest of my life.

Uncomfortable Truths

So I asked this question on Ask Metafilter because I’ve been trying to figure out a sticky (to me) problem. I’m not sure how I want to model this using Java.

Among the answers provided (all seem top-notch so far) was a link to an article, Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns. Even though it was written well-neigh two years ago, I had not read it until now. Let me just say my life has been poorer for it.

But the weird thing is that it is a really uncomfortable essay for me to read. I really really like the rigid structure of Java. Code written in Java is so well organized because of the rules and syntax. It is elegant and it does permit me a small level of smugness knowing I write in such a demanding language. And, basically, this article is listing the ways this language is so difficult to work with and that things need not be so crapular. Also, my design problem is not so large a problem when attacked with a less-noun-centric language.

At any rate, I haven’t done much more than read the answers in the thread so far and then the linked article so I don’t know how helpful the help will prove to be. I did, however, have to share the excellent rant.

Lossy Verses Lossless Discussion

Having mostly read from the tech/algorithm point of view, it was cool to read something from the audiophile crowd. A co-worker who I’ve been talking digital radio with for a while sent this along. It’s a nice summation of the benefits and drawbacks of lossy audio file formats with just enough disdain tossed in to give off that nice glow of smug superiority that us audiophiles love to bask in. So, without further ado, here’s the link:

Stereophile: MP3 vs AAC vs FLAC vs CD

Oh, and for the record, I use Apple’s lossless compression for my archival digital files. The tagging and album art capabilities along with (more importantly) the seamless experience with iPod/iPhone outweigh the technical benefits of FLAC.

The Agenda

You can smell it in the air. You can hear it rumbling in the distance. You can see the dust cloud on the horizon…

So the commentary in this post seems to have struck a chord, or maybe a nerve, with the St. Johnny’s crew—especially the righteous Anthony Whorebath. A man who would not normally deign to address little old me, but who has decided to make an exception. A man who is so busy traveling as to not have net access enough to drop comment spam on this wayward [and heretofore little noticed] blog but yet clears enough time and magically finds an internet connection during his travels long enough to engage in a limp effort at a punch up.

It would appear that Righteous Tony is playing the Swift Boat card. By his reckoning there is no way I received a comment on this blog linking to his site from the same IP subnet that serves his site because he was “out of town” and “away from internet access during the time in question.” Never mind that I made no mention of when the comment was actually sent… But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we?

His rant doesn’t stop there, though, because the Good Lord provides in mysterious ways. Never mind how spurious our crossed paths might be, little ol’ sinner me has presented Mr. Whorebath with an opening to attack his perceived enemies. In his world I am in league with Richard Carrier who was subject to a “blistering take down” at the hands of Big Tony over some internecine Battle Royale or other. In fact, Mr. Carrier is so demoralized by the extreme Logical Suplex thrown by Mr. Whorebath that he has now resorted to Gogglebombing.

Memo to Anthony Horvath:

Sometimes getting called out for comment spam is just getting out for comment spam. Spammers all make mistakes at some point. We accept your apology. Now lets just move on.

I would like to say, OTOH, that your quick thinking and opportunistic use of some random inbound linkage to further promote your swindle shows promise. You may just be able to keep a step ahead of your flock as you lead them to slaughter. Good luck, sir.

St. Spammy’s dot Com

So I posted a podcast today as I do on occasion, especially on Sundays when the dogs decide it is time to wake up long before I would like and/or Elz does. The few spare hours on a Sunday morning are nice for their self-directed solitude.

However, we digress…

So, like I said, I post this podcast and maybe even listen to the first half hour or so. It all works. All is good in the land of fezzes and pet hair. Elz and I go about our day. A late breakfast that would be called lunch if it didn’t consist of bacon!, eggs, hash browns, and toast. We feed a bit to the dogs because that’s what dogs live for. We doodle around on the computers a bit before getting ready for the big bowling bash. We then bowl (and, oh, someday I’ll have to write about that too) and leave and I drive to work…etc.

All this leading up to the point where I write the previous post identifying a d-i-y for making lava lamps. Before leaving the old WP management console I check in on the comments queue and, lo, there’s a comment!

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick. We just don’t get a lot of those around here. Heck, we don’t really even get readers around these parts. Still and all, there’s a comment demanding moderation. So I take a look…

It’s basically a word-for-word quote of my post with a “foo says:” hyperlinked to some evangelical Christian nutbar site. So, assuming that they’re not being swift boated by some vigilante 733t h4X0rz, these “Christians” feel justified in using comment spam to spread the word of Christ. Brilliant.

After all, if you look at this comment spammer’s website you’ll see links to right wing fact benders, Anthony Horvath pimps his book filler, and charitable fronts for lining evangelical leaders’ pockets. There’s a lot of “angry god, righteous jesus” editorializing and the whole bag of crap this brand of Corporate Christianity brings with it.

So, yeah, didn’t approve the comment but that didn’t feel quite good enough. Thought you’d all like to know what a shit Anthony Horvath is and what a crapular collection of charitable fronts one could use to line one’s pockets might look like. Enjoy the googlebomb you fuckstick.

Update: 20080303T162356
So I check the comments to this post and there’s some link farm building WordPress blog with a Christian bent doing essentially the same thing as St. Johnny’s. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Chuckles? Is spam the new path to salvation? Is anyone else running into this behavior?

Oh, and please do not confuse this with Ms. Massey in the comment section. Which, by the way, thank you and welcome aboard.