Posted by Stephen Waits
Fri, 30 Dec 2005 00:10:34 GMT
According to rumorvangelist Dean Adams, it’s possible that Biaggi is heading to World Superbike to join Troy Corser on the Alstare Suzuki team.
It’s a little bit sad to me for several reasons. Mad Max plays a decent antagonist in MotoGP – I’ll miss that. Also, he’s part of the fading “old guard”. And, I’m a tiny bit sad for Troy. Though, I know he can deal with it as well as anyone, he’s one of the coolest cats around. Too, I wonder if Max will have more respect for Troy than he did Nicky; afterall, nobody can doubt Troy’s talent. He’s been around the block more than a few times.
Via superbikeplanet.com.
Posted in motorcycles, racing | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Stephen Waits
Thu, 29 Dec 2005 21:07:00 GMT
Joel rambles on The Perils of JavaSchools.
I completely agree with him. Maybe it’s just because I’m old? But maybe it’s because I’ve seen it first-hand too.
One time, when I worked at Stormfront Studios, Inc., I accompanied our HR Manager on a recruiting trip to Harvey Mudd. We arranged our visit with the career center and asked them to line up 20 or 30 appropriate candidates. I didn’t really know anything about Mudd, though I guess I should have, it’s apparently a top SoCal engineering school.
I also had no idea that they’d switched their curriculum to “all Java all the time”, an exaggeration to be certain. I learned about the switch as I interviewed the first few candidates. These Senior level students basically, well, they knew Java.
Without getting too nasty, I’ll just say that we left with no second interviews planned. It may be a great school, and I’m sure some bright kids come out of there (after all, you truly get out of your education what you put into it); however, we sure didn’t get any glimpse of it on our visit.
I headed back home disgusted with the Java-switch, appalled, and thoughtless as to why any university actually believed it to be a good thing for their students.
Joel’s put a lot of sound thought into that why in his article. There’s an undercurrent of great advice in there. Forget Java, learn how to freaking program.
Posted in programming | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Stephen Waits
Thu, 29 Dec 2005 20:54:50 GMT
A report links Fructose consumption with obesity. To me the key to weight maintenance is still primarily caloric intake versus calories burned. I’ve witnessed this first hand, in myself, and in observation of others. However, eating the right things has to be a good thing too, and I’m certain processed sugars like fructose aren’t on the “right things” list.
Posted in science | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Stephen Waits
Thu, 29 Dec 2005 20:31:53 GMT
Check out these snippets of Mel Gibson’s Playboy Interview, from July 1995. It’s an older interview, and this is only a snippet, but it’s still new to me and still appalling. The whole thing is stupid. Instances of stupidity that don’t even need explanation to any rational person:
How come apes aren’t people yet?
Or how about:
There’s a big credibility gap. The carbon dating thing that tells you how long something’s been around, how accurate is that, really?
Well, read something about it, and you’ll find out!
But, one particular piece of idiotic ignorance really jumped out at me:
I’ve got one of Darwin’s books at home and some of that stuff is pretty damn funny. Some of his stuff is true, like that the giraffe has a long neck so it can reach the leaves.
He’s saying that Darwin was mostly wrong, but got some of it right. As evidence of what Darwin got right, Gibson mentions something that he might have actually gotten wrong!
The thing is.. The giraffe’s neck gets in the way of eating and drinking. Sure, it can reach higher leaves, but it makes drinking water and eating lower leaves very difficult (no, it can’t just bend its neck down). And lots of animals survived on eating the lower vegetation alone, so why not the giraffe? And why just a long neck? If being tall was key to survival then it seems that it could have evolved to be generally tall, rather than just having a long neck.
Yah, Darwin got a lot of things right, as did his predecessors, and he made mistakes. However, I’m certain that he got much more right than Mel Gibson.
He goes on to trash women as basically inferior. Smart guy, this one.
Gibson’s words scream of ignorance and a very low mental capacity. The bottom line is, Mel Gibson is DUMB!
I won’t ever watch another of his movies again. I’m sorry I’ve already watched some of his crap in my past. Now, I’m completely done with him.
Now, there’s a chance that these excerpts are illegitimate; regardless, I stand by my own opinions of him.
Posted in politics, science | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Stephen Waits
Thu, 29 Dec 2005 15:29:16 GMT
Finished today’s in 15:22.
Posted in sudoku | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Stephen Waits
Thu, 29 Dec 2005 03:13:53 GMT
Get it while it lasts, Amazon’s Price Drop Policy explains how to get refunds on purchased items whose prices are lowered within 30 days. Since this article is screaming around the ‘net right now, I don’t expect it to last.
On my 3 or 4 orders within the past month, I did find one book that dropped from $28 to $24, so I submitted my refund inquiry. It seems that Amazon’s pricing is rather fluid; several items increased in price too. Anyway, nothing to lose I guess…
Good luck!
Update: Here’s a site that will automatically notify you when prices change for the better. Just punch in your email address (for notification, of course), the item number, price, and date, and forget about it!
Via reddit.
Posted in deals | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Stephen Waits
Wed, 28 Dec 2005 19:20:29 GMT
Catching up on a few puzzles..
Posted in sudoku | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Stephen Waits
Wed, 28 Dec 2005 18:13:42 GMT
A nearly 8 year old paper from Ron Rivest, Chaffing and Winnowing: Confidentiality without Encryption, details an algorithm somewhat similar in concept to steganography, but considerably more secure in that it still depends on a secretly shared authentication key in order to filter wheat from chaff. The cornerstone of its confidentiality is in making chaff look like wheat, and mixing the two. Technically, this isn’t encryption, and should not be subject to encryption export laws.
Though I am not equipped to vouch for the actual level of confidentiality one might achieve with such an algorithm, it does seem smart. M. Bellare and A. Boldyreva have published a paper on The Security of Chaffing and Winnowing. Additionally, The SANS Institute published, A Review of Chaffing and Winnowing, which analyzes Rivest’s paper and introduces their own alternative algorithm, “Chaffinch”.
Rivest paper via reddit
Posted in security | no comments | no trackbacks
