My post SCons is full of win today triggered some interesting feedback on scaling problems in SCons. In response to anecdotal assertions that SCons is unusably slow on large projects, I argued that build systems in general must scale poorly if they are to enforce correctness. Subsequently, I received a pointer to a very well… Continue reading Analysis of scaling problems in build systems
The Smartphone Wars: Almost boring now…
Ah, yes, I see it’s time for another comScore report and another round of breathless journalism on the state of the U.S. smartphone market. But, you know, these are getting almost boring now. Once again, Android rampages over its competition like Godzilla laying the radioactive smackdown on Tokyo. And once again…everyone acts surprised? Get with… Continue reading The Smartphone Wars: Almost boring now…
Imprimatur me!
In the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up department, I learned a few minutes ago that I have been quoted, approvingly, in an article published with the imprimatur of the Vatican. This is from a news report that made Slashdot; I have not seen the article itself, which is apparently print-only and is likely in Italian. OK, yes, I did… Continue reading Imprimatur me!
SCons is full of win today
It’s not much of a secret that I loathe autotools and have been seeking to banish that festering pile of rancid crocks from my life. I took another step in that direction over the last four days, and have some interesting statistics to report.
Stolen jewels
Our cat, Sugar, is getting old. The final, swift decline one tends to see in aging cats is not yet upon her; she’s still the lovely creature we’ve known for nearly two decades – eyes bright, coat soft and glossy, purr ready and resonant. Our friends marvel at her apparent health at over 18 years…but… Continue reading Stolen jewels
The Four Levels of AFJ Mastery
Once, in a bygone century, in the half-forgotten place called USENET, there were masters of satire and parody who could be an example to us all in these latter days. Among the greatest of their arts was the AFJ – the April Fool’s Joke, yes, but in the hands of these masters the AFJ could… Continue reading The Four Levels of AFJ Mastery
The Smartphone Wars: Microsoft may win after all
By a curiously-timed coincidence, three lines of evidence have combined over the last week to convince me that I have been seriously underestimating Microsoft’s competitive potential in the smartphone market. One is that I actually got my hands on a Windows 7 phone; another is a report from a major market-research outfit that has been… Continue reading The Smartphone Wars: Microsoft may win after all
Don’t panic over Honeycomb’s release delay
Google’s announced plans to delay the public release of the source code for Honeycomb, the tablet version of Android, are causing some indignation to be vented among the partisans of open source. But should it? This is a good time to reflect on what the freedoms guaranteed by the Open Source Definition actually mean and… Continue reading Don’t panic over Honeycomb’s release delay
Bookend consistency
I’ve been thinking recently about writing a shared-memory export for gpsd. The JSON-over-sockets client interface we have is very powerful and flexible, but more than is needed when network access to the server is not required. For embedded deployments, in particular – it would be useful to have a lower-overhead way of shipping results to… Continue reading Bookend consistency
Naked Women With Guns
(No, that is not the ultimate Armed & Dangerous post title. The ultimate Armed & Dangerous post title would be Naked Women With Guns Smash The State!.) A few nights ago I was on IRC with a friend I shall refer to as ‘H’ who may, if she wishes, identify herself in a comment, discussing… Continue reading Naked Women With Guns
The bug that didn’t bite in the night-time: an anti-disaster story
A very curious thing happened with GPSD this week. In fact it’s so odd I’m still having trouble believing it. In software engineering we often have trouble getting seemingly simple things to work reliably. How does one react when an incredibly complex, fragile piece of bit-twiddling code works – perfectly – after six years without… Continue reading The bug that didn’t bite in the night-time: an anti-disaster story
Politics as usual is over
A number of my regulars have asked me why I don’t blog about politics as much as I used to. Fundamentally, it’s because I think the value of political persuasion is decreasing fast. Political persuasion matters most when when policy options are relatively open and unconstrained by objective conditions that politics cannot alter. It matters… Continue reading Politics as usual is over
Religious toxicity
Earlier today I stumbled over some accusations that atheists are lining up with Islam because their actual enemy is not religion but Christianity. The actual revelation here is that the fever-swamps of the left are capable of generating unlimited amounts of nonsense and putting it on protest signs. And, that conservatives are still prone to… Continue reading Religious toxicity
Armed & Dangerous has offspring, sort of
See Unarmed but still Dangerous. Well, he says he’s unarmed but dangerous, yet I’ve seen no mention of empty-hand skills at all! (That was a joke. You can chuckle now.)
Lady Godiva (with apologies to the Beatles)
OK, to prepare for this read up on the legend of Lady Godiva, and then read the lyrics of the Beatles’ Lady Madonna. You might want to take the three minutes or so to watch it being performed. Now sing this to yourself:
Rape statistics: a case study in public flim-flam
A commenter on a recent thread claimed “the lifetime risk of rape for a woman [in the U.S.] is one in six…Almost everyone who deals with the issue considers that wildly too low to be realistic. But one in six is indisputable.” No incidence of rape above zero is acceptable to me. I teach women… Continue reading Rape statistics: a case study in public flim-flam
Facing your inner alpha
There’s been some discussion in response to my post on A natural contemplates game on the meaning of the term “alpha male” as it applies to humans. In comments, I had this to say as a definition: As I use “alpha”, it simply means someone who is equipped for leadership roles by psychology and temperament.… Continue reading Facing your inner alpha
A natural contemplates game
Slang dictionaries never fail to interest me. A few days ago I ran across one serving the PUA (pick-up artist) subculture, a network of men (and a few women) who have attempted to systematize and explain tactics for picking up women. Chasing links from it, I found a network of blogs and sites describing what… Continue reading A natural contemplates game
The Smartphone Wars: Nod and WinCE
I learned this morning that Windows Phone 7 – the smartphone OS that bricks your phone! – is a skin over a bunch of core components from Windows CE. Which if you came in late, is widely regarded as the second most wretched hive of bugs and villainy Microsoft ever shipped. (Yes, I said “second… Continue reading The Smartphone Wars: Nod and WinCE
The Smartphone Wars: Bricks and Battiness
After the high drama of the last couple of weeks in the smartphone arena, it’s refreshing to encounter some good old-fashioned low comedy. We’ll get to more serious fare, but let’s take a look first at how astonishingly Microsoft just screwed the pooch. Microsoft’s very first update to WP7, adding no features but intended “to… Continue reading The Smartphone Wars: Bricks and Battiness