• Mud Slinging. Oh what Fun!

    So, awhile back, I helped my buddy Mike with a website theme for TooKookyForKentucky.com, which is basically an anti-Rand Paul website. Rand (son of Ron Paul) is running for the 2011 KY gubernatorial US Senate in the upcoming 2010 election*. He claims to be a Republican but he seems more libertarian, so Mike, being the good Republican that he is, created the site to call Rand’s bluff. Mike warned me before putting a link to my site at the bottom of the theme that I would eventually be a target of Rand’s party. It took longer than expected, but it finally happened. In response to my post informing everyone that I liked my antique Snoopy book, some guy named Hightower^ had this to say:

    What about your own Web-Master, Jerry Travis, who states in his entry of November 25, 2009, “(My vampire obsession goes a long way back, and doesn’t involve a single, boring, pasty-faced Cullen “… interesting, so the guy you used to assist you in your web site design is a admires drinking the blood of human-beings, and is self-admittedly “obsessed” with this? My my, you should be careful who you collaborate with.

    That’s gotta be one of the funniest things anybody has ever said about me, especially considering the post was about my love of Snoopy!

    This is a great example of context, and what can happen when snippets are taken away from said context. The poor sap probably doesn’t even know what my Cullen reference is talking about. Furthermore, Hightower probably didn’t click on the link for the text “vampire obsession.” It was a post from way back in July 2003, where I talked about how happy I was I got to watch a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer during that summer. He actually believes that because I like vampire stuff that I drink human blood. By that logic, I guess that means he likes to smuggle whiskey because he watches Smokey and the Bandit every other day.

    If he’s going to sling mud at me, he’s going to have to do better than that. If Rand is anything like Hightower, he is Too Kooky for Kentucky.

    *Correction: When I first posted this, about an hour ago, I mistakenly put that Rand was running for KY Governor in 2011. He is, in fact, running for the US Senate in 2010. Everybody’s probably going to have a field day with that :)
    ^Correction 2: The comment wasn’t made by Hightower. It was a guy going by the name Lycurgus.

  • Trav on Motivation

    There are two reasons people do anything:

    1. They want to to it
    2. They are afraid not to do it

    The thing that’s wrong with America is that nobody wants to do anything, and nobody is afraid of anything because consequences have been removed.

    In education, the kids don’t want to learn and they have nothing to fear if they don’t. In society at large, nobody wants to work, and nobody is afraid of starving to death because of all the social programs we have. So, these two, simple little rules have managed to bring one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known to its knees.

  • Cool Google Feature Removed

    Google has removed the “Show More Text” option from the “Show Options” menu. I just noticed it a day or two ago. Has anyone heard why they removed the option? I thought it was very helpful, because I often do a search and wish I could see a longer preview of the results before I actually commit and decide to follow a result.

    By the way, if you’ve been ignoring (or didn’t notice) the “Show Options” link, I think you’re missing out. On your results pages, the “Show Options” link appears here:

    Google's "Show Options" button gives a lot of features
    Google's "Show Options" button gives access to a lot of features

    I challenge you to click on it and check out all the neat new features. Happy browsing.

  • Greatest…Book…Ever!

    Nope. I’m not talking about Twilight: New Moon. (My vampire obsession goes a long way back, and doesn’t involve a single, boring, pasty-faced Cullen :) Beck got me an original printing of Snoopy: A New Peanuts Book, which was published in 1958! The Owsley County Public Library was cleaning out old books and Beck, knowing that I love all things Charlie Brown picked it up for me. Too bad for them!

    Reading the hundred or so simple 4 pane strips, I’m reminded why I love Charles Shulz: He combines frustration with humor in a way that makes life’s problems seem not so bad. For example, how often have we all wanted to be somebody else? Snoopy imitates numerous people and animals in many of the strips, and he always figures out that the grass isn’t actually greener on the other side. What better way to be reminded of the truth of this idiom than in the form of a lovable white beagle!

  • Diagrams, diagrams, diagrams

    I’ve been sitting here for the last couple hours contemplating a program design in my head. (Actually, I’ve been contemplating this design for a month or so, but I really was putting some brain power into it for the last couple hours. Anyway…back to my point…) I have decided to start putting the ideas into some codified form in an effort to start documenting my code and designs better. In trying to figure out which diagrams to draw, I realized that it has been so long since I have done a formal diagram to formal standards that I have actually forgotten a lot of the minor notations. I’ve decided to go with UML, but I have forgotten the rules for using a filled in shape vs. an empty shape, not to mention all the line styles needed to convey relationships…GASP! Looks like tomorrow that I’m going to have to dust off the UML Distilled book laying around here somewhere.

    It’s no wonder that I’ve forgotten a lot of these diagramming tools: Many of the clients I work for don’t have a clue what they’re looking at. For the last 4 years, I’ve been relying on text-based use cases because everybody, regardless of technical skill, can communicate with them. Frankly, I’ve gotten use to and comfortable with this format. There are some serious drawbacks to this though, namely the difficulty in seeing interactions between more than a couple modules at once. I seriously need some activity diagrams so I can start writing better test cases. I need to quit being such a Duct Tape Programmer. It’s quick, but it makes maintainability much harder than it has to be.

    The best news is that free, open source diagramming tools are exponetially better now than they were just 4 years ago, so as soon as I acquaint myself with some of the formalities, I should be able to have my diagrams cranked out in no time.

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