Month: January 2008

Ran across an article this morning on How To Recognize a Good Programmer. I think his points are very interesting, particularly his “positives” and “negatives” columns:

Positive indicators:

* Passionate about technology * Programs as a hobby * Will talk your ear off on a technical subject if encouraged * Significant (and often numerous) personal side-projects over the years * Learns new technologies on his/her own * Opinionated about which technologies are better for various usages * Very uncomfortable about the idea of working with a technology he doesn’t believe to be “right” * Clearly smart, can have great conversations on a variety of topics * Started programming long before university/work * Has some hidden “icebergs”, large personal projects under the CV radar * Knowledge of a large variety of unrelated technologies (may not be on CV)

Negative indicators:

* Programming is a day job * Don’t really want to “talk shop”, even when encouraged to * Learns new technologies in company-sponsored courses * Happy to work with whatever technology you’ve picked, “all technologies are good” * Doesn’t seem too smart * Started programming at university * All programming experience is on the CV * Focused mainly on one or two technology stacks (e.g. everything to do with developing a java application), with no experience outside of it.

This jives with my experience. I’m not a programmer, because I don’t enjoy programming full-time, but I am a sysadmin. I look at when I started monkeying with hardware and operating systems… I was eleven, and wanted my connection to LINDA, a local bulletin board system, to work better. I began taking apart our old “Portable” PC (a fifty-pound behemoth with a teeny, tiny green screen) in hopes of finding a way to improve performance.

Side sysadminning projects? I run this web site, and a few dozen others for friends and non-profits. I am passionate about adminning systems, to the point that sometimes I get obsessive and don’t know when to leave well enough alone. I do it for fun, and a hobby sometimes.

I think the principles laid out above have relevance to far more than programming. To find someone passionate about their job, you look for someone who’s passion extends beyond the workplace, regardless of their field of endeavor.

A friend emailed me details on the Firefly-themed Neverwinter Nights 2 module available on NWVault, entitled “Hero of Canton: Introductory Firefly Adventure”.

I love fan-fiction, particularly geeky video-game-based stuff. On that note, I finally own a computer that can run NWN2… maybe it’s time I bought it?

So I’ve played the Soul Calibur series only once or twice. I found it enjoyable, yet it didn’t grab me.

Regardless, I must admit that this particular trailer for the newest installment grabbed my attention, for reasons that will need no explanation if the trailer is watched to its conclusion.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/29535.html

So back in September, I talked about wanting to make a new rock band because it’s been a long time since I’ve been in one. Well, last week, I was approached by Doug, the leader of a Salt Lake-based rock ‘n roll band named Switchback and asked to audition as a replacement for the keyboardist they have been missing for a long time.

I went to see them in Tooele on Friday night at Tracks… and they definitely don’t suck 🙂 I’d looked up the band on their web site, and noticed that one of their faces was new. I also noticed that, although Doug, Ed, and Randy (Bass, Guitar, Drums) were really tight and had obviously played together a lot, Mark was struggling here and there with getting the right chords and seemed a bit nervous. I later learned that this was only Mark’s second gig with the band, with just a few rehearsals of the setlist

Makes sense. His licks are solid, but he just isn’t used to the playlist or his fellow band members yet.

Anyway, they put on a really fun performance to watch and listen to. Interesting to me, though, that the young crowd at Tracks danced a lot more to the VJ during breaks than to the band. I’m not sure why that is, but it was a pretty plain difference. The band remarked that they liked playing at Tracks a lot because it’s one of the few regular gigs where people do actually get up, dance, seem really into the music, and give some applause and tips now and again. Other places, apparently, people just sit around and watch, with just scattered applause.

Anyway, so I’m looking at the setlist… Holy crap, I’ll have a lot of work to do if I make it. About 150 songs as part of the regular set list, and apparently it changes all the time. It’s been such a long time since I played cover tunes on a regular basis, I’m a little intimidated.

So what would you do to get ready for an audition with a local pro band if you hadn’t played professionally for twelve years and felt rusty as all hell? Apparently, keyboardists who play rock and improv are few and far between. Ones who sing well and can also hold their own on rhythm guitar are a bit rarer. So I am not terribly worried about passing the audition/jam session… but I’m a whole lot more worried about being competent with the set list afterward!

James Randi is apparently expiring his Million-Dollar Challenge on March 6, 2010. It will have run for 12 years, with the million dollars safely earning interest and awaiting a challenger who can demonstrate psychic or any other supernatural ability under carefully controlled scientific testing rules.

Move a pencil with your brain? Win a million bucks!

Bend a spoon with your mind? Win a million bucks!

Accurately predict a series of future events? Win a million bucks!

Demonstrate that you can tell the difference between two high-end speaker cables using only your ears? Win a million bucks!

It’s been a very straightforward challenge, and so far no “psychic” or mystic has been able to prove anything other than random-chance probabilities in the lab. Many have tried. Many who try and fail complain that the testing is unfair, and a large number poo-poo the application process as filtering out legitimate paranormals because it’s not easy to design a test that satisfies both the paranormal investigator and the paranormalist.

Also the Foundation has made it a practice to disallow certain dangerous or untestable claims. For instance, people who claim to be able to survive indefinitely without food… well, some people can take months to starve to death, and the only conclusive proof you couldn’t do it would be your death. So that’s out. Also, claims of miraculous healings are extraordinarily difficult to test objectively because of placebo affect, among others. There are a number of other issues, so there’s a fairly narrow range of things which can be scientifically tested.

It will be sad that the “Million Dollar Challenge” can’t just be automatically extended to anybody who claims a supernatural ability, but after twelve years, well, it’s been a good run I guess.

Well, now the major ISP’s are talking about sifting through Internet packets looking for copyrighted material. The problem is, I host a boatload of fully legal MP3s for which I, or the contributors, hold the copyright. I’d hate to get a Cease and Desist because the name of one of my songs that I wrote nineteen years ago happens to be identical to one released by some teenie-bop group last year.

I think it’s time I just sucked up the fee and moved most barnson.org traffic to SSL encryption. I’ve been concerned for a while that network sniffers could capture passwords when we log in here, and seeing now that major ISPs are planning on sniffing everything for copyright violations, it’s simply time. That information could be too easily abused.

So on my 2008 resolution list: update barnson.org’s look, feel, and code level while encrypting the traffic.

OK.. So my buddy is setting me up with a computer from 2003. NOTE: This guy is an engineer, and a producer of the film.. so I respect his opinion a lot.. but I alseo respect you guys as well..

Wha? For Video editing?

Well.. its an old server from his work with what he describes as a WAY faster motherboard and a (is this right?) RAID HD. He says its 10K Rpms. It has XP pro (vista is, evidently, bad) and 150gb on that fast HD.. plus a USB 2.0 for me to plug a 500gb storage drive. He says it can take up to 12gb of ram and has like a ton of expansion bays (we’re throwing in a cool Graphics and Sound card)

He says that while the processor speed is slower than today, the no-bottlenecking PLUS full memory utilization PLUS lack of Vista PLUS fast HD will more than make up for it. He notes that people have used computers for video editing at home commonly since like 2001, and that this would have been SUPER state of the art at the time.

I’m iffy (the whole thing will be like 700 bucks – he’s giving me a LOT free and we’re purchasing the sound/video cards, processor, and memory.) Which makes it a lot less expensive than it would otherwise be – and he asures me it will MORE than adequately handle SD and HD video, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Dreamweaver, and whatever else I need.

What do you guys think?

Sam Harris has an interesting quote:

If a person thinks there is something that another person can say to his children that could put their souls in jeopardy for all eternity, then the heretic next door is actually far more dangerous than the child molester.

I know it’s winter, but am I really so dangerous that you look at me nervously when I’m outdoors sporting this beard and ripped-up jeans? I think my charm and winning personality will bring them over to liking me eventually… But from the response of the neighborhood parents when I talk with their kids when they are around, it sure seems like I make them nervous.

That’s it, time to shave and get a haircut and always wear a white undershirt so that I “fit in” with the Mormon mold again. This 1980’s-era ‘do and facial hair apparently scare the crap out of people.

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=2432676

A construction worker working on the Utah Capitol building during its re-dedication was found dead in the sub-basement during the ceremony.

That’s just weird. And they didn’t interrupt the celebration to take the body out; they just hauled him out the back door covertly during the fireworks. What a strange state I live in.

I ran across an interesting piece today on talkorigins: “Evolution is a Fact and a Theory”. Like so many other words, one word is used to describe two different things:

1. The fact that organisms evolve over time.
2. The theories of the mechanisms by which organisms evolve.

Sure, I’m a little late to the party, where scientists have made this distinction for a quarter of a century. But it’s new to me, and I thought it was a cool distinction. I’ll use it in the future when discussing this with friends who try to lump it all together as “Darwinism”. One worthwhile quote from the talk.origins site:

It is time for students of the evolutionary process, especially those who have been misquoted and used by the creationists, to state clearly that evolution is a fact, not theory, and that what is at issue within biology are questions of details of the process and the relative importance of different mechanisms of evolution. It is a fact that the earth with liquid water, is more than 3.6 billion years old. It is a fact that cellular life has been around for at least half of that period and that organized multicellular life is at least 800 million years old. It is a fact that major life forms now on earth were not at all represented in the past. There were no birds or mammals 250 million years ago. It is a fact that major life forms of the past are no longer living. There used to be dinosaurs and Pithecanthropus, and there are none now. It is a fact that all living forms come from previous living forms. Therefore, all present forms of life arose from ancestral forms that were different. Birds arose from nonbirds and humans from nonhumans. No person who pretends to any understanding of the natural world can deny these facts any more than she or he can deny that the earth is round, rotates on its axis, and revolves around the sun.

The controversies about evolution lie in the realm of the relative importance of various forces in molding evolution.

– R. C. Lewontin “Evolution/Creation Debate: A Time for Truth” Bioscience 31, 559 (1981) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism, op cit.

This ties into a concept that I’ve been toying with in my mind for the past couple of weeks. Daniel C. Peterson, noted Mormon apologist, pointed out on a thread at http://www.mormonapologetics.org/ that writers there often fall prey to the Fallacy of the Beard:

Q: Does one grain of wheat form a heap? A: No. Q: If we add one, do two grains of wheat form a heap? A: No. Q: If we add one, do three grains of wheat form a heap? A: No. … Q: If we add one, do one hundred grains of wheat form a heap? A: No. Q: Therefore, no matter how many grains of wheat we add, we will never have a heap. Therefore, heaps don’t exist!

So the same with the fact of evolution, and the theories of the mechanisms of evolution. Some maintain that, because science can never claim any conclusion with absolute certainty, evolution can never be a “fact”. Yet science is nothing more than the study of the natural world; every thing we can perceive with our senses carries with it information about itself, and these are the facts from which we can base our conclusions. Sure, our conclusions are provisional, but in some cases these conclusions are sure enough, and used successfully across enough disciplines, to be considered “fact”.

Just like I can tell that I have a substantial beard today. And I’m about ready to shave it off because it’s bugging me.