Me, on the GPSD mailing list: Once upon a time, I did not hate autotools. Yea verily, it was the morning of the world and all things (even autotools) seemed fresh and new). I’d say this innocence lasted until about, oh, 1995. But autotools was a kluge. And it did accrete kluges and crocks around… Continue reading Autotools must die
Month: March 2010
Scenes from the Life of a System Architect
I’ve been doing some heavy work on the core code of gpsd recently, and realized it would be a good idea to explain the whys and wherefores to my co-developers on the project. After I wrote my explanation and reread it, I realized I had managed to generate something that might be relatively accessible, and… Continue reading Scenes from the Life of a System Architect
Victimology bites
Dr. Richard Friedman’s Sabotaging Success, but to What End?, published 2010-03-22 in the New York Times, is about an instantly recognizable pattern — people who sabotage themselves so they can feel like martyred victims of an uncaring world. The piece is insightful and even funny in a bleak sort of way, but as I read… Continue reading Victimology bites
In search of: FTL taxonomy
I’ve been troping again. This time I found and repaired the TV Tropes page on Faster Than Light Travel. It had previously made a distinction between three subtypes of FTL drive: “jump”, “warp”, and “shortcut”. The “shortcut” category was confused and confusing, and I’ve renamed it to “portal” and fixed the definitions of both “portal”… Continue reading In search of: FTL taxonomy
Social Security and the fiscal event horizon
The Ides of March, 2010 may be remembered as the day the entitlements crash began. Social Security liabilities exceed inflow, and SSA has begun tapping its vault full of Treasury bonds. “Too bad” (as the AP story notes) “the federal government already spent that money…”
In search of: the sonic stunner
I’ve been enjoying the TV Tropes website a lot recently. Today I created my first full-fledged trope entry: the sonic stunner.
Subversion to GIT Migration: A Tale of Two Gotchas
I’ve been wanting to migrate the GPSD codebase off Subversion to a distributed version control system for many months now. GPSD has a particular reason for DVCS; our developers often have to test GPSD sensors outdoors and aren’t necessarily in range of WiFi when they do it. GPSD also needs to change hosting sites, for… Continue reading Subversion to GIT Migration: A Tale of Two Gotchas
On Learning Haskell
I’ve had learning the computer language Haskell on my to-do list for some time. I’m actually stepping up to learn it now, thanks to a temporary lull in my other activities and a vicious cold that has left me disinclined to strenuous work. I may associate Haskell with the taste of zinc gluconate for the… Continue reading On Learning Haskell
Sink, the Bismarckian state!
Hmm: On 24th February I wrote, in a comment on this blog: We’re about to reach the end of the historical era that began when Bismarck first implemented state socialism in the 1880s. The changes will be huge and wrenching; I wouldn’t even put the dissolution of the USA outside the realm of possibility. Two… Continue reading Sink, the Bismarckian state!
Greed kills: Why smartphone lock-in will fail and open source win
In a previous post, How smartphones will disrupt PCs, I explained how and why I think small, ultra-portable, general-purpose computers that we’ll think of and use as “smartphones” are going to displace the PC. I promised then to explain why the software of these devices will be open source. Go read Androids Will Challenge the… Continue reading Greed kills: Why smartphone lock-in will fail and open source win
Lies and consequences
In the horrible-inevitability department: Darwin Foes Add Warming to Targets. My first thought when I read this was: “Creationists opposing AGW hysteria? Wow. So those stupid fucks are good for something after all.” My second thought was: “It’d be a damn shame if AGW ends up discrediting good science with the public, but if it… Continue reading Lies and consequences
Cocoa party! Yeah!
First there was the Tea Party movement. Which I’ve been keeping my distance from because while some of the small-government talk appealed to my libertarian instincts, it seemed to have a whiff of grouchy-old-fart social conservatism about it. While I’ve nearly achieved the calendar age required for grouchy-old-fart status, I don’t want anything to do… Continue reading Cocoa party! Yeah!
The Nose of Peace
My regular readers will know that I’m sometimes fascinated by the extent to which mammalian body language crosses species lines — and, indeed, is so well conserved that families as far apart as felids and primates can communicate in ways that are emotionally satisfying to both parties. We take this for granted, but it’s really… Continue reading The Nose of Peace