The article is a nice example of why I'm conflicted about particle physics. Is it cool stuff? Absolutely. Is it relentlessly over-hyped? Dear God, yes.

[ I'm going to declare, purely by unsupportable fiat, that I get to have 3 gold stars per year for domain specific articles, which don't count against my (admittedly not well accounted for) 5 general stars per year. If you want, you can call them silver stars.

Having established my right to do so, I'm giving this blog post one of my newly minted silver stars. It succinctly captures so many of the feelings I've had towards particle physics in my life, but couldn't state quite so coherently.

Like other memed articles that i consider for star rating, i found myself wanting to clip almost every paragraph for the meme text. When that happens, I know it's a winner and instead use only a tiny clipping and star it or ramble on about how great it is (or both, as today).

Check it out. -k]

Uncertain Principles: Physics Funding Fundamentalism

How you place your squigglies won’t affect users in the slightest. But attention to internal code layout details implies that you’re equally attentive to the external details.

Nice blog... the guy makes some sense.

I also took a quick look at the site for his product, devshop, which appears to be a super cool project/requirements management tool.

I'm knee deep (or forehead deep, as it feels) in getting our internal development team up to speed on consistent requirements and project management methodology. I'm not an expert on this by any means, but I'm a developer who's fed up trying to make arbitrary deadlines because no one's tracking anything.

The downside is that due to client requirements, we're stuck using, essentially, the Rational Unified Process and some subset of the Rational toolset. That is, ClearQuest for defect and enhancement tracking, RequisitePRO for requirements management and Rational Rose for modelling and design. Of course, we're using MS Project for setting timelines and so forth, which is completely *not* integrated with the rest of the process.

Let me just note, I fucking hate the Rational Tools. I find them to be either minimally functional or so full of "features" that they're obtuse and are universally ultra-unfriendly. I'm 90% sure that's purposeful so that they can sell you expensive training / consulting.

Granted, the devshop application noted above doesn't do all the things that the Rational tools do, but appears to cut right to the chase as far as the nitty gritty of actually getting some work done. I look forward to checking out the final product. -k]

Uncommon Sense (for Software)

I read the entire 9 part story and it's quite something. I guess if you've been close to an addict, nothing here is too surprising, but it was fascinating to me because of the people involved.

The character of Jason Mewes was striking -- on the one hand a serious addict and on the other, an actor with the werewithal to memorize not just his lines, but every line from every character in the movie (Dogma) before the table readings, just to be really sure he wouldn't fuck up.

Anyway, if you've any attachment to the films at all, i think it's required reading.

-k

Silent Bob Speaks... About Jay's Addiction

Here's one example.

Maybe the rest of the democrats can get on board and not be such pussies all the time.

Pelosi Fucks not Around (occasionally)

[ Anyone start reading this yet? I feel like I've learned a bit just from reading the comments on lessig's blog. This book appears to be quite something.

Also, FYI, you can find links to (legal) PDF and HTML versions of the book in the comments on the linked page. -k]

Lawrence Lessig - The Wealth of Networks

Backup software is hard and thankless. A sizable minority has bad ideas about how backup does/should work, and what their real needs are.

Backup software is an organization’s software-quality acid test. For Apple’s software spread, I would place it only after the file system and Core Data in the ranking of software that absolutely, positively must-work. It requires an engineering backbone of steel, sometimes even saying “no” to data-compromising requests from users, upper-management and marketing.

Interesting article and some of the discussion found on the links is good too. It's made me rethink my use of Backup.

Somewhere in my reading, someone said something like "version control for all files is completely absurd", but I don't understand that. I admit there would be complexity in the UI, but I don't know that it'd be insurmountable. I'm damn near the camp that feels that every single file modification should be transparently and automatically versioned. If I hit "Save" it saves a version. I'm not thinking logistically at this stage... certainly I don't want a Documents folder with 10000000 files in it. But I wouldn't mind being able to control click a file and select "Show versions..." and be presented with a comprehensive list of every mod to that doc, with the ability to diff two or 3 versions.

What I *dont* want is to have to maintain CVS or Subversion and manually issue checkin and checkout commands. Could I run Subversion on my Documents folder? Sure, but it'd be annoying. I want something that abstracts that all away from me. Given that what I describe above is the special case of a version control scenarion in which only one user is modifying files -- e.g. the visible copy is *always* the working copy, so i never have to do a checkout or update -- I don't think it'd be so bloody hard.

The biggest hole I can poke in my own scheme is that to make it storage efficient you'd wanna store diffs, which is a pain to restore, more complicated (esp. on binary files).

I also recognize that this isn't yet a "backup" since it's all on one disk. However, if this scheme is implemented then the backup becomes an rsync since every concieveable version is already captured. Possible ways to reduce storage concerns would be to limit the number of versions stored locally... e.g. versions from the last 2 backup cycles are kept on disk... if you need anything from before that, it's on the backup disk.

I'm just thinking out loud here.

rentzsch.com: Hole in the Umbrella: Backup 3

If all goes as planned, "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," Michael Chabon's 1988 novel that put him on the literary map, will be made into an $8 million to $9 million movie starring a yet-to-be-cast actor in the lead, plus Peter Sarsgaard and Sienna Miller.

Still to be decided, however, is whether the movie in which Pittsburgh is a virtual character will be made in Pittsburgh.

Saaarrrsgaarrrrrd!

Chabon's Pittsburgh movie may not be filmed here

The U.S. Census Bureau, due to issues related to the separation of church and state, does not ask questions related to faith or religion on the decennial census. Accordingly, there are few sources of comprehensive data on church membership and religious affiliation for the United States. Perhaps the leading organization to address this gap is the Glenmary Research Center, which publishes Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States, 2000. The following series of county-level choropleth maps, which reveals the distribution of the larger and more regionally concentrated church bodies, draws on this resource. The maps are in GIF format.

Neat resource.

Map Gallery of Religion in the United States

In the next decade, single-celled animals might be some of the most important figures in high technology.

"We always overestimate the immediate impact and underestimate the long-term ones. The truly revolutionary stuff will take some time to mature."

Very cool stuff. I shoulda studied molecular biology.

Playing science's genetic lottery | CNET News.com

To those of you who don't know, our country has never been served by a more competent and professional military. For that reason, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that "we" made the "right strategic decisions" but made thousands of "tactical errors" is an outrage. It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic guidance they receive, not because of it.

I don't agree with him 100%, but he makes a strong statement. If only he'd done so sooner.

Why Iraq Was a Mistake