http://www.netcrucible.com/blog The software industry from a rational perspective Mon, 12 May 2008 18:05:16 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I woke up to the sound of CCTV News blaring the tidings that a magnitude 7.8 earthquake just hit the most populated area of China.  Most westerners have heard of major Chinese cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou -- and even Nanjing, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Shenzhen.  But few know about ... http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2008/05/12/earthquake-in-chengdu-and-mianyang-china/ My co-worker, Kevin, recently filmed the pilot episode of a new reality series on "A Startup in a Week".  A team of startup guys, including Adam Loving, built a Facebook app to raise money for good causes like building a school in Cambodia. There are 5 episodes, and some fun drama -- debates ... http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2008/04/25/building-a-startup-in-a-week/ Fresh from the inaugural cabal of '08, I wanted to do some automated processing tasks on my iTunes library.  I was delighted to see how easy it is to do this using LINQ to XML. The iTunes library XML file is a rather awkward format.  The semantics are dependant ... http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2008/04/11/processing-itunes-library-with-linq/ A number of people have asked me for more details about the situation in Tibet.  I've realized that I have a tendency to excoriate the hypocrisy in the press without necessarily offering much additional in the way of compensatory education.  So I'd like to remedy things by explaining the facts ... http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2008/04/03/more-on-cultural-genocide-in-tibet/ I don't know how many times I've seen some clever westerner use Wikipedia as an example of how the poor Chinese people are denied happiness by a censorious government.  CNET is currently propagating the meme, claiming that "Wikipedia missing China's voice". That's like looking at the server logs for the Milwaukee ... http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2008/04/03/china-wikipedia-and-apple-pie/ The politicians in Detroit are now charging Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick with multiple felonies, for lying in a civil trial about an affair he had.  Seriously?  Doesn't the political establishment in the nation's worst economy have anything better to do?  Kwame may be a rogue and liar, but he's practically a ... http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2008/03/24/witch-hunt-in-detroit/ This weekend, I awakened to coverage on CNN of "violence in Tibet".  The reporters breathlessly informed me that China has a history of censorship, that CNN was intrepidly on the case, and that citizens inside China were "probably" being prevented from seeing the footage.  The reporter gravely remarked, "but a ... http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2008/03/16/chinese-censors/ 12 hours later, the repaving process is mostly complete.  My Tecra M7 with Vista is running the best it has in a long time; I'm glad I did it.  It's been nearly 2 years since I paved; luckily I kept all my data on a separate drive, so I could ... http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2008/01/25/repaved-my-laptop/ So I decided to use F# (basically OCaml) instead of scheme for the pure functional version of my puzzle solver.  I wish I had started with F# in the first place.  What a gorgeous language!  Implementing in F# showed me what I was doing wrong in the C# version, and ... http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2007/12/30/playing-with-f/ Listening to Rabbit in the Moon's newest CD for the first time as I convert my puzzle solver to F#.  I mentioned RITM before on this blog -- they blow Underworld away.  Like a combination of MBM and Underworld, but pure and powerful like F#.  Takes me back to chocolate ... http://www.netcrucible.com/blog/2007/12/29/rabbit-moon/