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I've pretty much always been interested in organic chemistry; and when I was quite a young child my parents gave me a set of plastic parts for building models of molecules, notwithstanding the warnings in the instructions that it wasn't a toy for children. It served me well not only when I studied high-school chemistry myself, but also a couple years later when I tutored high-school students in chemistry. I still have it.
(4 March 2010)Livejournal has added Javascript code to all its pages to edit outgoing links users may post to sites like Amazon that offer referral programs. The code removes affiliate IDs users may include (hoping to get a cut of profits from the links) and replaces them with someone else's ID, presumably Livejournal's or the third party's own (so they get the money instead of the user who posted the link getting the money). Details linked from this Livejournal posting. It appears that at least some of this behaviour was unintended by, or unknown to, at least some of Livejournal's staff; it appears that they didn't actually write the code themselves but got it from the third party and put it on all their pages without knowing exactly what it would do. However, it appears that at least the behaviours of putting in an affiliate ID if none were already present, and of bouncing outgoing links through a third-party server, were intended.
(4 March 2010)In glorious mono from Roncesvalles, Toronto, and Victoria, B.C., it's Episode 6 of Doc Skala's Old-Time Variety Hour, brought to you by the letters 生 and 日 and by Torx screwdrivers. In this episode, SPAM-flavoured macadamia nuts steal the show.
(7 February 2010)In glorious mono from Roncesvalles, Toronto, and Hilo, Hawaii, it's Episode 5 of Doc Skala's Old-Time Variety Hour, brought to you by Grace Kola Champagne and by ILOG CPLEX. In this episode I play the last of the Hawaiian tape, covering my tour of the volcanic landscape.
(31 January 2010)In glorious mono from Roncesvalles, Toronto, and Hilo, Hawaii, it's Episode 4 of Doc Skala's Old-Time Variety Hour, brought to you by Tuong Ot Toi Viet Nam, and by the words 早い and 速い. This episode features more Hawaiian tapes, and some thoughts on alcohol - in Buddhism, and in Norse neopaganism.
(24 January 2010)In glorious mono from Roncesvalles, Toronto, and Hilo, Hawaii, it's Episode 3 of Doc Skala's Old-Time Variety Hour, brought to you by Sailor Jerry's Spiced Rum, and PC New Wave Cola. In this episode, I continue the travelogue, and give the whole Internet advertising thing really a deeper analysis than it's probably worth. Don't miss it.
(17 January 2010)In glorious mono from Roncesvalles and High Park, Toronto, it's Episode 2 of Doc Skala's Old-Time Variety Hour, brought to you by the VL-878 pocket-sized audio device and the Ensoniq AudioPCI. In this episode I take a trip to the park, walk the labyrinth, and talk along the way about faith, magic, and whether reality exists. Don't miss it. ETA: Now in ever-more-glorious mono! It turns out that I put a file in the wrong directory and as a result, what went up on the site on the 10th was an early draft instead of the fully edited and cleaned-up version. That explains some of the complaints I got despite the big effort I'd put into cleaning it up - I thought the people involved were just being pricks, but no, it turns out that what they heard wasn't the glorious version that I'd worked on. So, if you had trouble listening to episode 2 before, give it a try again now.
(10 January 2010)I should be allowed to set up a hidden camera at the doorstep of the Dundas West subway station in Toronto, which is across the street from the local Catholic school, and take photos up the skirts of teenage girls (or anybody else wearing a skirt) as they enter and leave the building.
(6 January 2010)In glorious mono from Roncesvalles, Toronto and Hilo, Hawaii, it's Episode 1 of Doc Skala's Old-Time Variety Hour, brought to you by El Yucateco Green Habanero Sauce, and the letters ン and ソ. Detailed summary and download link below the cut. Free registration required, to keep out the bots.
(3 January 2010)People who care about such things are talking about an article by Tom DeMarco in IEEE Software entitled Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone? (PDF file). Well, that's what I said 13 years ago. At the time I was taking, and hating, a second-year university software engineering course; I'd just come off a co-op term working in the real world making actual software people would use, and I wasn't too thrilled to be told a pack of lies about how the ricidulous "methodologies" of software engineering were not only helpful, but absolutely necessary, when I'd just seen validation of my long experience as an amateur, writing software and learning what actually worked. I wrote the article below, and it stayed on my Web site for a long time, and then I eventually took it down because I was remodelling, it had never attracted the attention I'd hoped for, and I didn't want to continue maintaining it and a bunch of other old material. This January (2009) one of my friends who actually works in the industry - I did a few more co-op terms and then headed for the academic path instead - was telling me how he thought I should put the "bromides" article back up. He said other people were catching on to similar ideas, he'd even discussed it with some famous software engineering writer whose name I don't remember (could even have been Tom DeMarco, could have been anyone) who had agreed substantially with my friend's description of my ideas, and the only problem was I'd been ahead of the curve writing about it in 1996. So, maybe the time for this article has finally come.
(27 July 2009)