Archive for February 16th, 2009

Long Weekend

Monday, February 16th, 2009

You know what really sucks? Long weekends where it rains on and off the whole time.

That is, unless you have a macro lens… Click on any for a bigger version.

Drops of rain on leaf, macro

Drop of water on Mountain Ash Berry, macro

Raindrops on flower, macro

Raindrops on Flower, macro

Software Development in a nutshell

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Jeff Atwood reminds us of the only eternal software development methodologies:

  1. DRY: Don’t Repeat Yourself
  2. KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid
  3. YAGNI: You Ain’t Gonna Need It

These, of course, are mere stepping stones on the road to development nirvana, the Cardinal Virtues of a Programmer, which are:

  1. Laziness: Lazy programmers do not like to write the same code more than once. Thus, a lazy programmer is much more likely to write code to be reusable and as applicable in as many situations as possible.
  2. Impatience: Impatient programmers do not like to do things that they know very well the computer could do for them. Thus, impatient programmers (who are also lazy) will write programs to do things that they do not want to have to do themselves. This makes these programs more usable for more tasks.
  3. Hubris: If programmers have hubris, they are much less likely to write unreadable code. A good bit of hubris is useful–it makes programmers want to write code that they can show off to friends. Thus, hubris, when practiced in the conjunction with laziness and impatience, causes programmers to write reusable, complete and readable code.

Note 1: This post exists because tattooing all this on my forehead would be too painful, and then I wouldn’t be able to see them either.
Note 2: The definitions of LIH are taken from Picking Up Perl by Bradley M. Kuhn.

I’m going to Japan

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Today, there’s a about a month until I leave for my Japan trip.

When I tell people I’m going, they ask “Where are you visiting and for how long”, I reply “I don’t know.” This always seems to lead into confusion.

Going to Japan has been at the back of my mind for about five years, but last year, seeing some photos of the Sakura (Cherry trees) in full bloom made me decide that a good goal for a trip would be to photograph Sakura. So I decided I would fly to Japan in the Spring of 2009, and follow the blossoms.

And therein lies the problem; Trees are extremely bad at keeping to human schedules – they bloom when they blooming well feel like it.

Fortunately, Cherry Blossom season is a big thing in Japan; so much so, that the country’s meteorological agency publishes forecasts of when the flowers will be blooming in different regions of Japan. As of today (16 Feb/09), they still don’t have the 2009 forecasts posted. According to my web-research, the first one is generally published between mid-February (now) and the beginning of March.

Add onto this that I’m really bad at sticking to dates when traveling. If I find somewhere I really like, I like the freedom to stay a few extra days. If I pass an interesting-looking place on the train, I like the freedom to back-track and just add it to my itinerary.

However, I do have a preliminary list of places I think I want to go… Some may get pruned, some may get added, but this is my “basic plan” at this point:

  1. Okayama
  2. Himeji
  3. Kyoto
  4. Kanazawa
  5. Matsushima
  6. Kinkasan
  7. Tokyo

Shiny Stockings Ball 2009

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Photos from the 2009 Shiny Stockings Ball are up.


Dancers at the 2009 Shiny Stockings Ball