Aaron Worsham

Is that the sun on the horizon, or just my new 52′ TV

CNET just ran a “scary” article posturing the doom and gloom of our future energy infrastructure. I pulled a fun factoid out for all of us to share.

“The problem facing the electrical industry is multifaceted, he noted. Demand continues to increase. American homes are 30 percent larger in terms of square footage and 50 percent larger in cubic footage than they were 20 years ago, which means higher heating and air conditioning costs. Electricity demand will likely climb 40 percent from today by 2030. By 2050, the amount of electrical capacity in the U.S. will double from today’s level, and triple from today’s level by 2095. “

Thats not good news. The web industry, my industry, is taking cheap, always available energy as a birthright. During the industrial revolution, when a factory needed another unit per day they would pluck an eager kid off the street. No different today, really. Our form of child labor comes in a box and is delivered by the FexEd guy. We plug our new hire into the wall, spend little more feeding him than they did back then, and off go our productivity charts. Cheap labor always dries up eventually, due to social pressures, environmental impacts and economic shift. Are we really naive enough to believe our little power leaches back in the data centers of our favorite web companies are immune to the same unyielding forces?

I’d like to tag team on this subject by commenting on my recent revelation. My house is a power sponge. With two members of the geek elite living under the same roof, electronic proliferation is just not avoidable. Every room has a outlet with a splitter hanging off. Most every splitter has two or three power lampreys drinking in the mana of life for their surrogate, plastic shelled master. They reward us for our generous offerings by blinking and beeping and dancing around to amuse us. My new High Def TV, especially, preens in a glow that is usually reserved for tanning salons. The heat alone, from say DVD-recorded image of a blazing fire, is enough to warm your hands on a cold night. Then I realized, standing outside with the garbage cans, watching cartoons thru the curtains just how much light that monster puts out. It got me wondering at how our country will continue to feed our new, hungry plastic-shelled children. It also made me very very scared of the DTE bill this month.

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My Waking Nightmare

From Pingdom

My career began as a Network Engineer with a national bank. We were*very* careful about cable creep, to the point of fastidious, compulsive obsession. When you have only a 2 hour window on Sunday morning at 3am, you tend to fixate on these things the first time. Cable management became my own personal demon. During the great East Coast Blackout of 2003, at a different company, I ripped out every single ethernet cable from 10 racks of data center networking equipment just to seize the unique opportunity to ‘re-run these damn cables’. Yep, I was that deep. Still don’t know why my boss didn’t fire me on the spot.

Im out of that business. I hung up my Cisco SE hat years ago to pursue software. But that picture just about stopped my heart. Really and truly, my palms are still a bit damn. Demons.. Demons from the ID

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Fiberglass & Resin

Dirty Jobs has an episode on Surfboards.  They have a Fiberglass cloth and resin conbination that makes for a beautiful, smooth surface.  Setup time on the Resin was 8 minutes.  I can see that technique for a unique table top.

Fiberglass and Resin 

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Yes, code does blend - Day Two

I slept in, missing most of Brian Goetz’s Keynote on Concurrency: Past and Present What I did catch was an interesting discussion of Erlang. This was my first exposure to a functional languag, or one where the focus is on mathematical functions and not state. I can’t personally see a need in my business for a functional language, but the concept opens up new ideas for what a programming language can be.

Bruce Eckel did a nice presentation called Why I love Python. I was curious to see how this very well known Java name was going to handle it. Personally I like Python and Ruby better than Java and C++, but my exposure to java and C++ are limited to a few bad experiences. Im just not smart enough to understand Java, or so it seems to me. Bruce had a different take. His point was that Python and Ruby make programming easy, and that thats ok. It is ok for someone like me to like Ruby and not like Java and still consider themselves a programmer. The talk was geared towards java folk, though, and I knew most of the ‘cool things’ that he mentioned about python. Still, good presentation.

One of the names that came up in quite a few presentations was Jruby. Until this conference, JRuby wasn’t on my radar. But after I heard Neil Ford say in Jim Weirick’s talk that JRuby had surpassed the native Ruby interpreter MRI in speed, my ears picked up. I liked the idea of accessing Java libraries from my Ruby code, but JRuby seemed immature when I heard about it first. So I decided to sit in on Brian Sam-Bodden’s talk on Bitter Java? Sweeten with JRuby! His take is that JRuby is the only interpreter supported by a large corporation. Therefore it will eventually replace MRI completely. Im not sold completely, but it will be a solid option, to be sure. the Java VM is stable and battle hardened. Building a interpreter for any language off of Sun’s VM is a good idea. We’re going to look at using JRuby for our next Ruby project.

Not seeing anything worthwhile in the second half of the day, we opted to drive back early. I got what I came for, and in a way I reconnected with that little programmer hidden under all that managerial BS. Proof? First blog post in months. But like any vacation, the buzz will fade eventually, some time just before the Web 2.0 Expo if Im lucky.

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Yes, code does blend - Day One

I just got back from CodeMash. So for a low-dough show, the lineup of speakers I saw were impressive (especially low, errr free, since Edge Case bought our tickets)

Neil Ford, from Thoughtworks, was theKeynote speaker. His talk on Software Engineering and Polyglot Programming was well received. He took the audience though the similarities and differences between “Software Engineering” and Civil Engineering by discussing the process of building bridges. His point was hit home later on in other sessions, which was that testing is the rigor of our profession. Also, new languages are like new materials in bridge building. Only testing will flush out the good ideas from the bad.

Next, I sat in on Joe O’Brien’s discussion of Manditory Testing in Dynamic languages and DSLs. His favorite language, Ruby, was on display here. He did a nice job of explaining that testing is everywhere in the language, so there are no excuses not to use it. I still believe the tools available in Java for testing are superior, but even with ten years of java dominance in the industry there isn’t as far a margin as I had thought. Ruby is catching up quickly. The real tag line was everything is testable, and he can prove it

From here a co-worker and I visited with James Ward His demonstration on RIA applications in Flex and AIR is up on Google’s now defunked Video site. I had already watched it, so not too much was new to me here. It was still an impressive presentation. Hes a good contact to keep around

Im now wishing I had jumped into the Introduction to Scala from Dianne Marsh however, I ended up in a SOA conference from Brian Prince He did know his material and he had the cool blue hair and quirky fun manor of an Alex Albrecht
which I greatly respect. And yet, I couldn’t get past his employer, Microsoft. I don’t mean to be a hatter, but Microsoft lecturing on the best practices for doing distributed computing, to me, was a waste of time. So I ended up skipping out of most of the session.

I greatly enjoyed the next presentation from Jim Weirick on advanced Ruby Features. Jim wrote the Ruby make replacement Rake in 20 minutes, according to the story he told the audience. then he proved it by doing it again, live, in under 10. It was hard to follow everything in the session, though, so Im not sure I got much out of it other that to say I met the Santa Clause of Ruby. He also now works for Edge Case, our Ruby solutions provider

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A pebble from the River

My wife is away visiting her sister. My mind breaks free from convention.

I enjoy predicable behavior. My weekends are well scripted exercises in touching the bases of my many hobbies. I eat pizza and watch movies on Friday nights. Wake up late on Saturday, clean the kitchen while listening to an episode of “Wait, Wait don’t Tell Me” on my ipod. Then I spend the next few hours finishing the basement. Saturday nights are open. Sunday morning I go to my Woodshop and continue work on one of my furniture pieces. Come home around 3 in the afternoon, pickup something to cook from Collisantai’s and settle in for the night.

Seems my mind enjoys these ruts only when nothing changes. I awoke this Saturday to complete distraction. Sarah wasn’t next to me, naturally . This small change completely unhinged my very core. I didn’t know what I was suppose to be doing, so I made it up as I went along. I got out of bet around 10, two hours latter than normal. I still cleaned the kitchen and worked on the basement, but I knocked off early. I was bothered the whole time by an idea I had had years ago for a website. Every single person in our industry has the “great” idea once in their lives and it haunts them forever until they complete it to its natural failure. I had never created my great idea and had forgotten it, buried under layers of other interests like sediment in the Detroit River. But now my mind had dragged the bottom and unearthed this little project. A pebble from the river of consciousness. It held it up to my minds eye and said “See what a pretty idea this is, hmmm? See how it shines?”

I worked on this little idea all last night, all of today. Ill likely work more this afternoon and evening. Im not sure if it is a good idea, only that it is my personal “great” idea and I need to follow it now. At least until it lets me go again and sinks back beneath the surface.

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Break the 30 minute format

Casey McKinnon makes the case for short format television without meaning to.

Shes makes a few good points in her article “Give Us Credit” that I only want to touch on and then ignore. My real intention in this post is to focus on something she didn’t mention.

One, broadcast media companies are always looking for the next cheap thing. Reality TV was to our generation what Game Shows were to our parents time, hugely profitable when popular. It costs little to nothing to produce an episode of Survivor when compared to an episode of Lost. Thats already well established and when they were running similar ratings it was obvious to the networks which was the bigger profit maker.

Two, web content is the next source for really cheap, popular content. No arguement here.

Three, web content makers are going to get absolutely used by big media contracts that they sign but either don’t understand or think they are the exception to the rule. Exploitation of the online talent will be the next fashion accessory at this year’s gala , every media exec will have their favorite swindle stories hanging off their arms like a trophy wife.

I hope everyone is as smart as Casey when they get their first offer, but I don’t hold that hope too high.

The real interesting story here is the formatting of this new concept. I see this as the best chance we have to break out of the thirty minute
block group-think that we have been stuck in all these years. Even MTV, the pioneer of short segment entertainment, gave up the music video market to hook audiences on half hour sets with sponsorships run throughout. This dependence on the 30 minute block is killing all hope of our new media web content to find a worthy home on the TV. Buzz Out Loud host Tom Merrit, on his show with Molly Wood, mused about the possibility of having an extended form 30 minute Ask a Ninja sitcom. Wow would that ever kill the funny! People, we do not want to shoe-horn our good content into really unneeded and inappropriate TV cliche’s. Ask a ninja works in 5 minute segments. We should use that, not throw it away.

Here is what you do. Take the 30 minute block format of TV and marry it with the short web content segment, allowing for more than one running series in a 30 minute block. So instead of stretching Ask a Ninja out to 30 minutes, take it and Chad Vader and Rocketboom and Diggnation and make them all part of a 30 minute block. (boy would that be an interesting lineup to follow) Here is the key, it must be in predictable order. If you knew that at 8 I would see Ninja and at 8:05 I would see Galacticast every Sunday and those could be followed up with new episodes of a teen drama (LonelyGirl?) and a cooking show (ControlAltChicken?), you might pull yourself away from the monitor slightly, if only five minutes at a time.

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The best bagle

Blogs are not high literature. but they are good for debating the merits of breakfest fare.

I like salt bagles. Some call them New Yorkers, which to me just tags unneeded geographic baggage to something pure and unspoiled. However, salt bagels by themselves are nothing special. Actually they are nearly inedible. They need a partner, a straight man that they can play off of. Enter, stage left, cream cheese. Salt bagel and Cream Cheese are a powerful duo. The smooth cream cheese never had it so good before it sat between a sliced salt bagel, toasted of course. Yah gotta toast it, even double toast it to get all that crunchiness into the action. Oh, if my cardiologist is reading this, I gave up salt bagels years ago (yeah right) Apparently eating giant flakes of sea salt in the morning can cause some hypertension or high blood pressure or other minor aflictions like, I dunno, maybe dry mouth. But really, is life worth living if we have to give up our unhealthy habits to live?

The proportion of salt to bagel is as crucial in the ratio as oil and vinegar in a dressing. Every bagel vendor has their take of what is salt covered. A fancy bagel shop in Ann Arbor grabs plain bagels, licks the top, sprinkles table salt and charges three fifty for the privilege. New York Bagels, in the strip mall with the good Jewish deli on Orchard Lake just has plastic bins where hundreds of salt, plain or raisin bagels sit for the short time it takes before they are brown-paper-bagged and schleped outta there. The difference is the salt, baked into the dough at the bottom near the crusty poppyseed and sesame base. Add some locs, a brick of Philly’s own and a knife. That was my personal treat once a month, worth the drive from anywhere in South East Michigan.

So next time you look at the bagel offerings and you think another Cran-apple cinnamon strudel might send you over the edge, try a salt and cream cheese double toasted.

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Rifftrax is worth the two dollars

$2.99 plus tax and popcorn is cheaper than having real friends.

Mike Nelson has a cooler hobby than you. Sure, we all sit around drinking beer with our friends and watch movies. If you went to college, you sat through your share of James Bond marathons on TNT during finals week when you were failing physics and you needed your girlfriend to explain vectors so that you didn’t get a D. We’ve all been there, man. But Mike found a way to get paid.

RiffTrax is an old idea with a fancy web2.0roundedbuttons appeal. Mike, former head writer on MST3k, and his friends sit through pop movies and make fun of them. The genius is, he sells the audio and you find the video yourself. Its a clever way to avoid MPAA licensing pariah and keep the cost down since you likely already have the movie or can netflix it easily. That’s right, its a verb now, you got a problem with that? For me, it’s the highbrow references. I can get poop jokes from my daugher; it takes a special wit to drop greek philosopher references into a movie with Keanu Reeves.

The online store they have is complete instant gratification. Last night I wanted something funny and, of course, I pulled out The Matrix. I couldn’t sit though it again without help, so I checked the Rifftrax catalog and there it was. Downloaded in 5 minutes.

Syncing the MP3 on your computer to the DVD on the TV can be a hassle, but if you follow the basic instructions they give you in the beginning and never EVER pause the movie you should be aces. Kid had to put her self to bed last night. Ill make it up to her when shes in college by pretending ignorance like my parents.

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Community and corn

In the neighborhood where I was raised, the community holds tightly to some very strong traditions. They are good traditions, like having a parade on the 4th of July or lighting Luminarea along the street during December. Some good traditions can withstand generations of new faces without loosing a single step. So it is with our community tradition of the Corn Roast, held every summer since the founding of the association 75 years ago. One one Friday in August, every family around comes together at the lakeside beach to share food and company. Bushels of fresh picked Michigan sweetcorn is roasted in large vats of boiling salt water over an open fire. Kids play in the water while old folks catch up on local stories with friends and family.

The celebration is simple, but it is also symbolic. Harvest time is something that busy modern families never experience. For farmers, who make up the backbone of the small communities all over this country, this time of year is a renewal of the spirit, a reminder of what they are doing and why it matters. We are not farmers in our cloistered community, but we too remind ourselves why we do what we do through the perfect example of this experience.

I grew up taking much of these traditions for granted. To me the corn roast was a big picnic, nothing special. I have lost some of those early feelings and memories because I just didn’t realize their rarity. Now, having re-experienced this corn roast with my daughter, wife and mother, I have soaked up some of that very potent energy. I can’t hold it for ever. Im just thrilled for as long as it lasts

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