Just a quickie post to say, I'm the inventor of the Culica. Culica (and the two cofounders, Chris and me) will be on a major BBC TV show on Monday at 9pm (Oct 3rd 2011). Follow this blog (If you have an account), and also see/follow Culica stuff:
Culica official website
Culica
Culica community - Twitter, Facebook etc. to follow
Culica community
Culica Games Store buy cool Culica products! Including Culica and computer games etc.
Culica Games Store
And see the main Culica Blog too!
Culica Blog
Get in touch and get involved!
James
Saturday, 1 October 2011
Monday, 29 August 2011
Failure is not only an option, but can be a necessity
There is an experienced chess grandmaster who laments that he has lost many ELO points, which are the rating by which Grandmasters are measured.
He says his record in tournaments is: 54 wins and 86 draws - and here is the important thing - no losses! He lost many ELO points because he is drawing against, and not beating, chess players with low ELO.
It's quite fascinating that a man's downfall is so well correlated by his *not* losing ANY games. I've never seen anything so strongly scientific in support of the notion that one must take risks or one will, by not losing, lose!
Obviously, the grandmaster needs to take more risks and win more games. Though he will lose more games, his score will go up. It's an uplifting story because no one likes losing but by not losing you can be a greater failure yet!
And as Kasparov says, you learn more from your failures than your successes so a failure can be an investment in the future.
Blimey what a preachy post I've created :-)
He says his record in tournaments is: 54 wins and 86 draws - and here is the important thing - no losses! He lost many ELO points because he is drawing against, and not beating, chess players with low ELO.
It's quite fascinating that a man's downfall is so well correlated by his *not* losing ANY games. I've never seen anything so strongly scientific in support of the notion that one must take risks or one will, by not losing, lose!
Obviously, the grandmaster needs to take more risks and win more games. Though he will lose more games, his score will go up. It's an uplifting story because no one likes losing but by not losing you can be a greater failure yet!
And as Kasparov says, you learn more from your failures than your successes so a failure can be an investment in the future.
Blimey what a preachy post I've created :-)
Monday, 22 August 2011
Tourettes Phone
My (iphone) phone has Tourettes. It changed "xox" (short hand for, kiss hug kiss) into "Cox" and "Awwww" into "Sewers". Naturally I vomited at this filth belted out by my sweary phone. The "auto-corrects" happen at the very last moment just as one hits "send".
Oh, and the iPhone never learned - sometimes I sign my name as Jim and every single freaking time the damned iPhone wanted to correct "Jim" to "Him" or "Kim" aaargh! And the little x to get rid of the retarded suggestion is so tiny - why can't they make that X bigger so it's easier to get rid of the mental auto-correct? I know why, because trendy designers prefer form over function - a big X might be ugly - the Gods forbid. Designers/marketroids - the b*st8rds! Well here's some news marketroids, that was my last iPhone - little things mean a lot to me!
Actually the main reason for dumping iPhone is that Apple are control freaks and their ecosystem is closed, I prefer freedom - open systems, and Android is free-er. But kudos to Apple for single handedly making Microsoft irrelevant.
Oh, and the iPhone never learned - sometimes I sign my name as Jim and every single freaking time the damned iPhone wanted to correct "Jim" to "Him" or "Kim" aaargh! And the little x to get rid of the retarded suggestion is so tiny - why can't they make that X bigger so it's easier to get rid of the mental auto-correct? I know why, because trendy designers prefer form over function - a big X might be ugly - the Gods forbid. Designers/marketroids - the b*st8rds! Well here's some news marketroids, that was my last iPhone - little things mean a lot to me!
Actually the main reason for dumping iPhone is that Apple are control freaks and their ecosystem is closed, I prefer freedom - open systems, and Android is free-er. But kudos to Apple for single handedly making Microsoft irrelevant.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Trapped in a ghastly Search Engine bubble
Google and other search engines analyse what we do. And based on that, they hide stuff from us! Everybody only sees a little bubble of what search engines think we will like. It's like having eyesight, but the gods only allowing us to see south east and being oblivious to the rest of the world out there.
I'm a Zumba monkey
Went to my first Zumba dance class. It's a mashup of salsa and other foreign dance styles in a kind of keep-fit dance session, it's enormous fun, especially for a fitness class. Well it's fun unless you're unfortunate enough to see my comically bad imitations of zumba. I just jump about having fun and hope for the best
I'm also the scruffiest dressed in the room. Everyone (everyone else there were chicks) apart from me were wearing all this alien, extravagant multi-layered gym clothing that looks like they're equipped to go rock climbing on the moon, and here's me, shorts and t-shirt. Unreconstructed, unfashionable and unreformed.
I was the only bloke but it's not a gay thing to do. At least I hope not ha ha, well it makes a change from my occasional visit to the chess club which is 100% blokes.
I'm also the scruffiest dressed in the room. Everyone (everyone else there were chicks) apart from me were wearing all this alien, extravagant multi-layered gym clothing that looks like they're equipped to go rock climbing on the moon, and here's me, shorts and t-shirt. Unreconstructed, unfashionable and unreformed.
I was the only bloke but it's not a gay thing to do. At least I hope not ha ha, well it makes a change from my occasional visit to the chess club which is 100% blokes.
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Can a god really create an Adam?
As a software engineer, I'm amazed about the human body and brain. Non-software developers think that software works like magic, like a word processor or operating system or web or phones, somehow software is this spongy stuff that is soft and it works. They have no idea of the complexity, of the difficulty of creating it. Likewise they have no idea how miraculous the brain works or the body works, it just works.
Every year I work on software, my absolute astonishment at the working of a single biological cell, let alone a whole animal, gets deeper. To me software is not magic, I know roughly how it works, at least on certain levels of the stack. But biology???
Now I think about it, this is a powerful argument about god - a god or a committee of gods cannot possibly be smart enough to program an Adam from scratch.
Evolution over billions of years is somehow necessary to arrive at such a solution.
Every year I work on software, my absolute astonishment at the working of a single biological cell, let alone a whole animal, gets deeper. To me software is not magic, I know roughly how it works, at least on certain levels of the stack. But biology???
Now I think about it, this is a powerful argument about god - a god or a committee of gods cannot possibly be smart enough to program an Adam from scratch.
Evolution over billions of years is somehow necessary to arrive at such a solution.
Wednesday, 27 July 2011
Thoughts on iphone spell checking and on web frameworks
A couple of random geeky thoughts.
I've noticed that apple iPhone autocomplete works best when you make an early mistake. Then it suggests correct long word much sooner. My phone is rewarding me for bad spelling by being helpful and punishing me if I'm accurate by making me type every f*****g letter.
Probably there is a patent violation avoidance reason for it.
Programming: web frameworks
Web frameworks need to be cat (templates) and dog (OO code) and "Ajax" event driven (goose) and media (elephant) all at the same time. It's actually probably mathematically impossible to do more than one of those brilliantly. Two or more breaks the others.
By a blind evolution we have created a system, the web, that is impossible to develop efficiently for.
They try to make it intelligent with semantic web technology which will mean that as well as a cat, Dog, goose and elephant it will also need to be a monkey at same time.
I've noticed that apple iPhone autocomplete works best when you make an early mistake. Then it suggests correct long word much sooner. My phone is rewarding me for bad spelling by being helpful and punishing me if I'm accurate by making me type every f*****g letter.
Probably there is a patent violation avoidance reason for it.
Programming: web frameworks
Web frameworks need to be cat (templates) and dog (OO code) and "Ajax" event driven (goose) and media (elephant) all at the same time. It's actually probably mathematically impossible to do more than one of those brilliantly. Two or more breaks the others.
By a blind evolution we have created a system, the web, that is impossible to develop efficiently for.
They try to make it intelligent with semantic web technology which will mean that as well as a cat, Dog, goose and elephant it will also need to be a monkey at same time.
Friday, 27 May 2011
Physics discussion of the Electron
This post is about the shape of the electron. Here I wish to show some remarkable physics as told by John Duffield to me and some friends in an email correspondence.
From James
See Electron Shape
From John
Interesting, thanks James.
But it's a strange article this. It talks about the electric field and the
magnetic field as if they're two different things, rather than two aspects
of the electromagnetic field, depending on relative motion.
If you're at rest in an electron's electromagnetic field, you'd say you were
an electric field. If however this electron was at rest close up to a
proton, the electromagnetic fields of the electron and the proton would mask
one another, and you'd say you were in no field at all. If however the
electron was going round the proton, you'd say you were in a magnetic field.
If you've got a whole array of electrons and protons, and the electrons are
all going round in the same orientation, what you've got is a magnet.
Going back to a single electron, the electron has spin angular momentum, and
its magnetic dipole moment tells you that even though you've only got a
single electron, you've got something going round, because a loop of current
has magnetic moment. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_moment#Magnetic_moment_of_an_electron
But the electric dipole moment "is a measure of the separation of positive
and negative electrical charges in a system of charges". Looking for this in
an electron doesn't make sense to me. It's like looking for a bit of the
electron where the chirality goes the other way.
Another guy pointed out this other report on the same thing:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028145.100
I didn't know this:
"The result is a challenge to supersymmetry: while the standard model
suggests the electron is egg-shaped by only one part in 10^28, supersymmetry
sets the range at between one part in 10^14 and one part in 10^19.
'We cannot rule out supersymmetry but we're certainly putting pressure on
the theory,' says Hudson.
An improvement of one order of magnitude could either confirm supersymmetry
or rule it out, something the Imperial team now aims to achieve".
From James
Fascinating! Isn't your model of the electron non Circular? A photon in an orbit? Or is the orbit spherical?
From John
It isn't my model. The orbiting photon is toroidal, which means it's
circular, but not entirely spherical. Think of a spherical onion and peel
off layers. As you get down towards the middle it starts looking apple
shaped. But you've got to get down to the scale of the Compton wavelength
before you see this.
From James
Fascinating about the electron but wouldn't the torroidal geometry be detected? Thanks for insights but surely the torroid is not experimentally discovered if spherical to one part in 100000000000000. Not a hint of internal onion?
From John
The lack of electric dipole moment doesn't actually say the electron is
spherical. Looking for it is like asking which part of the electron is
positively charged. None of it is, just as no part of a screw thread goes
the wrong way. Magnetic dipole moment is different. Read about it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment and note the
bit that says the electron "indeed behaves like a tiny bar magnet". A bar
magnet is where the electrons have a common orbital spin orientation. They
aren't totally randomised, pointing in all directions that might cover a
sphere. So the electron "intrinsic" spin isn't either.
-----
And that concluded this discussion of the electron shape, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this physics :-)
John's book, the superb Relativity+ is available on Amazon.
See the Physics Discussion Forum that John hosts.
From James
See Electron Shape
From John
Interesting, thanks James.
But it's a strange article this. It talks about the electric field and the
magnetic field as if they're two different things, rather than two aspects
of the electromagnetic field, depending on relative motion.
If you're at rest in an electron's electromagnetic field, you'd say you were
an electric field. If however this electron was at rest close up to a
proton, the electromagnetic fields of the electron and the proton would mask
one another, and you'd say you were in no field at all. If however the
electron was going round the proton, you'd say you were in a magnetic field.
If you've got a whole array of electrons and protons, and the electrons are
all going round in the same orientation, what you've got is a magnet.
Going back to a single electron, the electron has spin angular momentum, and
its magnetic dipole moment tells you that even though you've only got a
single electron, you've got something going round, because a loop of current
has magnetic moment. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_moment#Magnetic_moment_of_an_electron
But the electric dipole moment "is a measure of the separation of positive
and negative electrical charges in a system of charges". Looking for this in
an electron doesn't make sense to me. It's like looking for a bit of the
electron where the chirality goes the other way.
Another guy pointed out this other report on the same thing:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028145.100
I didn't know this:
"The result is a challenge to supersymmetry: while the standard model
suggests the electron is egg-shaped by only one part in 10^28, supersymmetry
sets the range at between one part in 10^14 and one part in 10^19.
'We cannot rule out supersymmetry but we're certainly putting pressure on
the theory,' says Hudson.
An improvement of one order of magnitude could either confirm supersymmetry
or rule it out, something the Imperial team now aims to achieve".
From James
Fascinating! Isn't your model of the electron non Circular? A photon in an orbit? Or is the orbit spherical?
From John
It isn't my model. The orbiting photon is toroidal, which means it's
circular, but not entirely spherical. Think of a spherical onion and peel
off layers. As you get down towards the middle it starts looking apple
shaped. But you've got to get down to the scale of the Compton wavelength
before you see this.
From James
Fascinating about the electron but wouldn't the torroidal geometry be detected? Thanks for insights but surely the torroid is not experimentally discovered if spherical to one part in 100000000000000. Not a hint of internal onion?
From John
The lack of electric dipole moment doesn't actually say the electron is
spherical. Looking for it is like asking which part of the electron is
positively charged. None of it is, just as no part of a screw thread goes
the wrong way. Magnetic dipole moment is different. Read about it at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_magnetic_dipole_moment and note the
bit that says the electron "indeed behaves like a tiny bar magnet". A bar
magnet is where the electrons have a common orbital spin orientation. They
aren't totally randomised, pointing in all directions that might cover a
sphere. So the electron "intrinsic" spin isn't either.
-----
And that concluded this discussion of the electron shape, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this physics :-)
John's book, the superb Relativity+ is available on Amazon.
See the Physics Discussion Forum that John hosts.
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Musings on tech
This is a copy of some casual emails fired off. To be safe, I thought I'd post them on the web, where no one will read them. The emails are flippant, and it should be assumed that there is exaggeration and tongue-in-cheek aspects, so shouldn't be taken too seriously.
-----
to Madpole, from Eadon
Google is evil with all this annoying "intelligence" they're building into their search engine. With MS they made intelligence so bad they had to get rid of it (no clippy in office anymore) but google can make intelligence just good enough that it is REALLY annoying, and you can't switch it off.
as for captchas - yes, huge subject. I was thinking that when AI evolves to the point of being smarter than us at going on the web, and they're close, then the web will be UNUSABLE.
Related topic - captures - if they get any harder, I'll have to download a captcha-solving computer program or firefox plugin that will use AI to help me read the damned captchas. And preferably fill them in for me so I don't have to type the bastards.
I wonder if google are harvesting all these captures mistakes to make their AI even better, every capture you solve makes google more powerful. It's the google equivalent of Matrix using humans as battery/power sources.
computers/internet/phones getting worse every year! Harder and harder, in some ways.
Enteprise computing - no one knows what the devil that is anymore. 15 years ago it was EJBs. Then Spring came along and hibernate. And Lamp. And all this microsoft shit that the governments are bribed into using. And now clouds. And MQ this, and tivoli that.
As for (SOAP-y) Web Services - they failed spectacularly compared to the hype! You don't hear SOA as much in job ads, I just realised! SOA architects wanted? Not so much
No one knows any more how to write software. And to solve that problem, they invent the "Cloud". Oh christ. Now now have virtual machines inside clouds inside virtual machines. No one knows where the operating system stops, starts, ends or where it hits the silicon chips.
At work now, I have all these remote desktop virtual machines with passwords and usernames, and I just can't remember them, can't keep track of them. Before there were 3 servers. Now there are hundreds and hundreds and help!
I'm stressed out! I can't find anything, don't know what VM to use, don't know what is hosting what. HELP!
And everyone is saying Cloud! cloud! and what happens the other day? Yahoo say, oh, we're going to kill Delicious. Great! Put stuff on the cloud, then watch as they kill it in a few years.
We're doomed.
- Eadon
------------------------------- FROM MY PAL, MADPOLE --------------
-) Google App Engine for Business is currently in preview.
-) Each application costs $8 per user, up to a maximum of $1000, per month.
You are raving about mobile revolution and rightly so. But why is SAP so expensive? Because kids CANNOT do it at home hehehehehe... why iphone jobs don't pay top rates? Because kids CAN do it at home.... ;-)
True, anybody can write Google App Engine apps - and doesn't have to pay ANYTHING for it (as opposed to annual £60 for iOS privilage)... but Google Enterprise is another kettle of fish all together... and it is heavy.. VERY HEAVY hehehehe... paying $8 per user per month for the app I wrote myself is not a trivial matter... and that doesn't include data storage and other costs... ;-)
And here is the potential reason, App Engine Enterprise currently in review, nobody knows anything about this stuff and only very rich companies can afford to find out hehehehe... and they employ the first wave of Google and ex-Google experts to train their stuff in this Magic.
It all reminds me very much of SAP... the exclusivity of the knowledge is worth top bucks.
On another hand, as already mentioned, on personal level, this is yet another experience for me to prove that I am not interested... I am pleasingly amazed with myself how little I care about all this, how, when I trawl through all this jargon trying to find snippets of useful information I keep thinking: "this is not who I am, this is not what I want to do - I'd rather meditate, go for walks and read some spiritual books"....
It is total, abstract bollocks. And I am not trying to "catch up" with technology any more, I am not excited about opportunities because, being older and more experienced, I know that I am a humpster on the wheel, and every time I think I am starting to catch up, the wheel starts to spin faster... and it is totally senseless and useless experience.
- Madpole
------------------------------- END FROM MADPOLE END --------------
to Madpole, from Eadon
Virtual machines were all the rage in 96 and they became huge and now no one notices them. and now people are thinking, hey cloud! 5 years later, another IT game.
It reminds me of web services / SOA - all these tools, like aqualogic and weblogic integrator. Those tools terrified me. I thought, shit this stuff is so abstract. It's not writing java any more, it's xml config files sending xml files, and there are xml wrappers around other xml standards, the whole mess is terrifying!
I mean, if the thing doesn't run, it's not a case of, oh, the code doesn't compile, let's look at the compile errors and hack the code till it compiles. Oh no, it's oh sugar, the thing doesn't work, and log files are full of meaningless shit.
It's a disaster created by architects. They even put "architect" in an acronym for it, SOA service oriented architecture.
It doesn't work for most stuff, by most I mean, nearly all!
Ditto the "Cloud" - it doesn't work except for stuff that uses the web anyway, like online email.
Same thing. If it stops working, what can you do? Pay a consultant to fix it? yeah, and how's he going to do that, it's not even on your own foobar servers!
I saw a cloud article where MS were slagging off Google App engine and Amazon cloud and stuff, I thought, hmmm MS are scared of them! MS are trying to play this game. From my experience of TFS and MS Sharepoint (MOSS), which I hate with a vengeance, god help us all!
SAP was sane in principle, at least.
Yes, iphone apps, kids can write them, so low cost - exclusivity of knowledge, very excellent point! I had been expecting iphone devs to start costing the earth, and that wasn't happening. Your insight does explain it.
- Eadon
------------------------------- FROM MADPOLE --------------
Yeees... this refreshes my Java / xml memories hehehehe... and You are absolutely right... and it is even worse... because Web Logic, MQ, Web Sphere - all those monsters are installed on your network, belong to You, there is still certain amount of standard approach here... but Google.. gosh, yes, I am trying to do login, my workmate too... it doesn't work, and the thing is, that because everything Google is GLOBAL, single instance, we can debug, we can't see error messages because they maybe confidential, by trying to do simple login we are using Google Accounts Management... ALL accounts - all people in News Int, yours, mine, whole worlds - so of course it is not going to say what is wrong because that would be a security risk... so trial by error until You get it right, without understanding what really is going on and whether You accidently exposed all your company accounts to www... KRAZY!!!
But the thing my dear friend is that, yes, those trends came and went before... but Google, Google will make sure that they stay. I dunno - Google is like a tsunami... it has such momentum that it is practically unstoppable for the next good few years to come... and by then the damage will be irreversible....
And yes, I hate all this stuff, it just gives me a headache and I've been in this job for 2 months.. but haven't done anything yet... I just keep discovering more and more complexities without even grasping any of them... And I dream of being buried in a single script, one code file... rather than having to juggle 3,000 tools, editors, documentation etc just to get "hello world" working... ;-)
------------------------------- END FROM MADPOLE END --------------
New discussion:
to Madpole, from Eadon
Rumours are that Microsoft might well kill .NET. - And they want to discourage C++. They're looking into HTML 5 etc (probably their own twisted proprietary non-compatible version).
meanwhile google is looking at allowing native C++ code to run in the browser. Would be funny if the only way you could write C++ code on windows is to have it run in the browser. I mean, how ass backwards is that?
This world of virtual machines, clouds, browsers running native apps, it's all getting completely out of freaking control!
- Eadon
-----
to Madpole, from Eadon
Google is evil with all this annoying "intelligence" they're building into their search engine. With MS they made intelligence so bad they had to get rid of it (no clippy in office anymore) but google can make intelligence just good enough that it is REALLY annoying, and you can't switch it off.
as for captchas - yes, huge subject. I was thinking that when AI evolves to the point of being smarter than us at going on the web, and they're close, then the web will be UNUSABLE.
Related topic - captures - if they get any harder, I'll have to download a captcha-solving computer program or firefox plugin that will use AI to help me read the damned captchas. And preferably fill them in for me so I don't have to type the bastards.
I wonder if google are harvesting all these captures mistakes to make their AI even better, every capture you solve makes google more powerful. It's the google equivalent of Matrix using humans as battery/power sources.
computers/internet/phones getting worse every year! Harder and harder, in some ways.
Enteprise computing - no one knows what the devil that is anymore. 15 years ago it was EJBs. Then Spring came along and hibernate. And Lamp. And all this microsoft shit that the governments are bribed into using. And now clouds. And MQ this, and tivoli that.
As for (SOAP-y) Web Services - they failed spectacularly compared to the hype! You don't hear SOA as much in job ads, I just realised! SOA architects wanted? Not so much
No one knows any more how to write software. And to solve that problem, they invent the "Cloud". Oh christ. Now now have virtual machines inside clouds inside virtual machines. No one knows where the operating system stops, starts, ends or where it hits the silicon chips.
At work now, I have all these remote desktop virtual machines with passwords and usernames, and I just can't remember them, can't keep track of them. Before there were 3 servers. Now there are hundreds and hundreds and help!
I'm stressed out! I can't find anything, don't know what VM to use, don't know what is hosting what. HELP!
And everyone is saying Cloud! cloud! and what happens the other day? Yahoo say, oh, we're going to kill Delicious. Great! Put stuff on the cloud, then watch as they kill it in a few years.
We're doomed.
- Eadon
------------------------------- FROM MY PAL, MADPOLE --------------
-) Google App Engine for Business is currently in preview.
-) Each application costs $8 per user, up to a maximum of $1000, per month.
You are raving about mobile revolution and rightly so. But why is SAP so expensive? Because kids CANNOT do it at home hehehehehe... why iphone jobs don't pay top rates? Because kids CAN do it at home.... ;-)
True, anybody can write Google App Engine apps - and doesn't have to pay ANYTHING for it (as opposed to annual £60 for iOS privilage)... but Google Enterprise is another kettle of fish all together... and it is heavy.. VERY HEAVY hehehehe... paying $8 per user per month for the app I wrote myself is not a trivial matter... and that doesn't include data storage and other costs... ;-)
And here is the potential reason, App Engine Enterprise currently in review, nobody knows anything about this stuff and only very rich companies can afford to find out hehehehe... and they employ the first wave of Google and ex-Google experts to train their stuff in this Magic.
It all reminds me very much of SAP... the exclusivity of the knowledge is worth top bucks.
On another hand, as already mentioned, on personal level, this is yet another experience for me to prove that I am not interested... I am pleasingly amazed with myself how little I care about all this, how, when I trawl through all this jargon trying to find snippets of useful information I keep thinking: "this is not who I am, this is not what I want to do - I'd rather meditate, go for walks and read some spiritual books"....
It is total, abstract bollocks. And I am not trying to "catch up" with technology any more, I am not excited about opportunities because, being older and more experienced, I know that I am a humpster on the wheel, and every time I think I am starting to catch up, the wheel starts to spin faster... and it is totally senseless and useless experience.
- Madpole
------------------------------- END FROM MADPOLE END --------------
to Madpole, from Eadon
Virtual machines were all the rage in 96 and they became huge and now no one notices them. and now people are thinking, hey cloud! 5 years later, another IT game.
It reminds me of web services / SOA - all these tools, like aqualogic and weblogic integrator. Those tools terrified me. I thought, shit this stuff is so abstract. It's not writing java any more, it's xml config files sending xml files, and there are xml wrappers around other xml standards, the whole mess is terrifying!
I mean, if the thing doesn't run, it's not a case of, oh, the code doesn't compile, let's look at the compile errors and hack the code till it compiles. Oh no, it's oh sugar, the thing doesn't work, and log files are full of meaningless shit.
It's a disaster created by architects. They even put "architect" in an acronym for it, SOA service oriented architecture.
It doesn't work for most stuff, by most I mean, nearly all!
Ditto the "Cloud" - it doesn't work except for stuff that uses the web anyway, like online email.
Same thing. If it stops working, what can you do? Pay a consultant to fix it? yeah, and how's he going to do that, it's not even on your own foobar servers!
I saw a cloud article where MS were slagging off Google App engine and Amazon cloud and stuff, I thought, hmmm MS are scared of them! MS are trying to play this game. From my experience of TFS and MS Sharepoint (MOSS), which I hate with a vengeance, god help us all!
SAP was sane in principle, at least.
Yes, iphone apps, kids can write them, so low cost - exclusivity of knowledge, very excellent point! I had been expecting iphone devs to start costing the earth, and that wasn't happening. Your insight does explain it.
- Eadon
------------------------------- FROM MADPOLE --------------
Yeees... this refreshes my Java / xml memories hehehehe... and You are absolutely right... and it is even worse... because Web Logic, MQ, Web Sphere - all those monsters are installed on your network, belong to You, there is still certain amount of standard approach here... but Google.. gosh, yes, I am trying to do login, my workmate too... it doesn't work, and the thing is, that because everything Google is GLOBAL, single instance, we can debug, we can't see error messages because they maybe confidential, by trying to do simple login we are using Google Accounts Management... ALL accounts - all people in News Int, yours, mine, whole worlds - so of course it is not going to say what is wrong because that would be a security risk... so trial by error until You get it right, without understanding what really is going on and whether You accidently exposed all your company accounts to www... KRAZY!!!
But the thing my dear friend is that, yes, those trends came and went before... but Google, Google will make sure that they stay. I dunno - Google is like a tsunami... it has such momentum that it is practically unstoppable for the next good few years to come... and by then the damage will be irreversible....
And yes, I hate all this stuff, it just gives me a headache and I've been in this job for 2 months.. but haven't done anything yet... I just keep discovering more and more complexities without even grasping any of them... And I dream of being buried in a single script, one code file... rather than having to juggle 3,000 tools, editors, documentation etc just to get "hello world" working... ;-)
------------------------------- END FROM MADPOLE END --------------
New discussion:
to Madpole, from Eadon
Rumours are that Microsoft might well kill .NET. - And they want to discourage C++. They're looking into HTML 5 etc (probably their own twisted proprietary non-compatible version).
meanwhile google is looking at allowing native C++ code to run in the browser. Would be funny if the only way you could write C++ code on windows is to have it run in the browser. I mean, how ass backwards is that?
This world of virtual machines, clouds, browsers running native apps, it's all getting completely out of freaking control!
- Eadon
Friday, 11 March 2011
Socialist nutter
A funny thing happened to me this morning...
A funny thing happened to me this morning on my way to work. I was waiting for a train at Hucknall railway station when this dodgy geezer attempted to hand me a union leaflet, he walks up asks me if I know why the country has a huge debt?
"Yes, it's because we've just had ten years of Labour government" I point out. (Labour were the recent socialist government of the UK).
He denies this scientific fact and points to a graph of debt plotted against time in his union leaflet, which has a huge spike at around World War Two (a decoy from the Labour government's disastrous record).
I said, when did the last labour government get in, so he points to the graph and the debt is low at that point.
I pointed to the end of the graph, and showed him that his own graph proved that when Labour lost power they had burdened the country with a massive debt! His own chart proved it, he could not deny it!
The train arrived.
He protested, "Debt is still increasing you know!"
I said, "Yes, it is". (Which is unfortunate but true).
However my agreeing with him on this point paradoxically seemed to irritate him even more, possibly because it meant that I was using reason and facts, and not just being contrary.
He said, as I was boarding the train, "I hope you get made redundant!" and trudged away.
Not one to miss a chance of a well deserved put down, I said, sarcastically, "you're a nice fellow aren't you? You're a typical socialist, you hate everybody".
As the train drove past, I saw him on the platform, still trudging, presumably waiting to ambush more commuters. He didn't look very happy. Now that I think about it, he looked as miserable and dour as Gordon Brown.
Well, it made my morning, I can tell you. But this surreal encounter with the Union man was further proof that people don't learn, people do not understand economics and politics, they are blind to facts. And if this guy is paid to do so, then he is just a cynical salesman of left wing get-us-into-more-debt politics.
A funny thing happened to me this morning on my way to work. I was waiting for a train at Hucknall railway station when this dodgy geezer attempted to hand me a union leaflet, he walks up asks me if I know why the country has a huge debt?
"Yes, it's because we've just had ten years of Labour government" I point out. (Labour were the recent socialist government of the UK).
He denies this scientific fact and points to a graph of debt plotted against time in his union leaflet, which has a huge spike at around World War Two (a decoy from the Labour government's disastrous record).
I said, when did the last labour government get in, so he points to the graph and the debt is low at that point.
I pointed to the end of the graph, and showed him that his own graph proved that when Labour lost power they had burdened the country with a massive debt! His own chart proved it, he could not deny it!
The train arrived.
He protested, "Debt is still increasing you know!"
I said, "Yes, it is". (Which is unfortunate but true).
However my agreeing with him on this point paradoxically seemed to irritate him even more, possibly because it meant that I was using reason and facts, and not just being contrary.
He said, as I was boarding the train, "I hope you get made redundant!" and trudged away.
Not one to miss a chance of a well deserved put down, I said, sarcastically, "you're a nice fellow aren't you? You're a typical socialist, you hate everybody".
As the train drove past, I saw him on the platform, still trudging, presumably waiting to ambush more commuters. He didn't look very happy. Now that I think about it, he looked as miserable and dour as Gordon Brown.
Well, it made my morning, I can tell you. But this surreal encounter with the Union man was further proof that people don't learn, people do not understand economics and politics, they are blind to facts. And if this guy is paid to do so, then he is just a cynical salesman of left wing get-us-into-more-debt politics.
Sunday, 30 January 2011
Ultra-new Physics: Seecube Theory
Have a look at this link on my eadon.com site:
Seecube Theory: Eadon's Theory of Everything
That theory is compliant with normal physics. Here I will go into totally unhinged mode and speculate even more wildly, not taking it too seriously of course. :-)
I have to think about how my new physics theory might, if it is true, lead to ideas on interstellar propulsion and faster-than-light travel, real "crackpot" territory :-) In my theory, every seecube (which is a point in space) is connected to every other (like elements in a software data structure) and not subject to the speed of light. The problem though, is understanding what information (information in seecubes is the same thing as matter/energy in my theory) can travel through the connected "seecubes". If it turns out that instant communication is possible (quantum mechanics says it isn't, i.e. that useful info can't be transmitted faster than light, but I reckon qm is wrong) then how can this be exploited?
Likewise, anti-gravitational technology might be possible by exploiting seecubes, but I have no idea how, (My friend John's ideas excepted, as I'll discuss later). In seecube theory gravity slows time down because the seecubes use up "clock ticks" accelerating you, so that time gets "lost". If you could interfere with this seecube acceleration process then you could change time, gravity and acceleration - and take short cuts at tachyon (faster than light) speed and even teleport. You could defy gravity in this way, and, also, go around corners without feeling the centrifugal (or centripetal) force.
John, mentioned above, is considering the physics of possible anti-gravitational systems. This is not as exotic as it first sounds, as it is based on the mundane physics of rare earth metals magnetism. In his view gravity is a pseudo force related to electromagnetism, and magnetic levitation are equivalent to an antigravitational force. But there's more to it... a twist...
Seecube Theory: Eadon's Theory of Everything
That theory is compliant with normal physics. Here I will go into totally unhinged mode and speculate even more wildly, not taking it too seriously of course. :-)
I have to think about how my new physics theory might, if it is true, lead to ideas on interstellar propulsion and faster-than-light travel, real "crackpot" territory :-) In my theory, every seecube (which is a point in space) is connected to every other (like elements in a software data structure) and not subject to the speed of light. The problem though, is understanding what information (information in seecubes is the same thing as matter/energy in my theory) can travel through the connected "seecubes". If it turns out that instant communication is possible (quantum mechanics says it isn't, i.e. that useful info can't be transmitted faster than light, but I reckon qm is wrong) then how can this be exploited?
Likewise, anti-gravitational technology might be possible by exploiting seecubes, but I have no idea how, (My friend John's ideas excepted, as I'll discuss later). In seecube theory gravity slows time down because the seecubes use up "clock ticks" accelerating you, so that time gets "lost". If you could interfere with this seecube acceleration process then you could change time, gravity and acceleration - and take short cuts at tachyon (faster than light) speed and even teleport. You could defy gravity in this way, and, also, go around corners without feeling the centrifugal (or centripetal) force.
John, mentioned above, is considering the physics of possible anti-gravitational systems. This is not as exotic as it first sounds, as it is based on the mundane physics of rare earth metals magnetism. In his view gravity is a pseudo force related to electromagnetism, and magnetic levitation are equivalent to an antigravitational force. But there's more to it... a twist...
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Another new year shot
This shot was taken whilst on holiday in the Czech Republic, at an observatory that has both radio and optical telescopes.
Photo editing was done using "GIMP" software. Ridiculous name, but it's extremely powerful, akin to Photoshop. Only, being open source, it doesn't cost anything.
Well worth a look if you have photos that need editing. There's a bit of a learning curve but you can find help and tutorials on the web.
Photo editing was done using "GIMP" software. Ridiculous name, but it's extremely powerful, akin to Photoshop. Only, being open source, it doesn't cost anything.
Well worth a look if you have photos that need editing. There's a bit of a learning curve but you can find help and tutorials on the web.
New Culica Blog Site
Happy New Year!
The official culica blog is up and running: Culica Blog.
I will still be blogging here, to provide news and updates about Culica.
The official culica blog is up and running: Culica Blog.
I will still be blogging here, to provide news and updates about Culica.
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