Friday, September 13, 2002

9:29:15 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Why would anyone want to manage software? It can't be the money. [read more] [Tony Bowden: Understanding Nothing] 2:52:37 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Recipes jeanluv asked for the recipe to my chili. remember, she asked for it. jodi's super special chili ingredients: 2 pounds ground meat of choice (i use turkey, but you could use beef or venison if you so choose) 1 largish can of tomato sauce 1 mediumish can of dized tomatoes (perferably the kind that comes with the green chiles in it, it's made by hunts) 1 teeny, tiny can of tomato paste (i used hunts) 2 green peppers 1 gianourmous onion 56 shakes of cumin 34 shakes of cayenne pepper 26 shakes garlic powder 97 shakes of black pepper 3 shakes of salt 78 shakes of chili powder 2 to 3 cans kidney beans brown ground meat of choice in a little bit of olive oil (i use a little bit of olive oil because there doesn't seem to be enough fat in the ground turkey to keep it from burning to the bottom of the pan). while meat's browning chop up as much of the green peppers as you can until you are bored with chopping up the green pepper. throw half into the browning meet and while you're at it add about 16 shakes of cayenne pepper. open all the canned things except the kidney beans and dump them into a large crockpot. go stir the meat. open the kidney beans and toss them in a colander to rinse off the mystery slime-- that slime just sorta grosses me out so i always get rid of it. stir the meat. shit! start chopping the onion. chop as much of it as your watery eyes can handle. for me that's usually about half an onion. since the meat's almost done, just toss the chopped onion in the crockpot with the beans, tomatoey products and the rest of the green peppers. start shaking all the spices into the crock. add more or less as you see fit. once the meat's all browned dump that into crock. stir it all together. throw lid on crock, turn on high, let sit for hours and hours, preferably over night. then taste a cup in the morning, see if you can ascertain what spices are missing or that you might need more of, could be cumin. i'm not even sure what the cumin is for, but i followed a chili recipe once that had cumin in it, so i just always add it. that recipe also called for paprika, but c'mon i've tasted paprika it doesn't add jack to your chili, perhaps it makes it redder. so if you really like red chili add some paprika. so when the chili tastes all chili like and yummy, you can serve it. voila! goes well with grilled cheese sammiches. 1:55:45 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

The other side of greener grass. [...] You may think reading about lawn care is about as interesting as watching grass grow, but come with me on a short (barefoot) stroll through the geeky side of organic turf maintenance... [kuro5hin.org] A very informative article written from a pragmatic standpoint.   [Seb's Open Research] 1:03:03 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Albert Einstein. "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible." [Quotes of the Day] [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog] 12:54:25 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

What is critical thinking? Nobody said it better than Francis Bacon, back in 1605: "For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things … and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture." 12:44:43 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

Hey Russell. I was just talking with my fiancee yesterday about my career path and we seem to be thinking along parallel lines. I too have been dealing with the never ending learning of new technologies for the past 10 years and it has been fun and challenging but I am beginning to think that I will be slowing down too. I am not sure if it is due to a loss of passion for the work or a loss of mental prowess. I am considering whether or not I should move up into something like project management. This of course opens up a whole new can of worms in training and personality traits. Crap Code Redux. It dawned on me today as I was talking about my website and projects and such that my "get it done" attitude is great for my personal ambitions and project goals, but it may not be the best plan of action if I'm ever going to show off the stuff I'm writing to prospective employers. I think I'll have to go back and take a look at the criticisms I received on the code that's out there now and do some re-working to make them a little more "professional" and not 2000 lines of spaghetti code thrown into a JSP page. Throwing in some J2EE best practices wouldn't be bad while I'm studying for my certifications either. This isn't nearly as fun as just getting the code out there (which I know I haven't done lately) - but one of the reasons I'm trying to produce cool apps is see what opportunities they open up. I lay awake at night worrying about my family's financial future and the only real tools I have to fix that is by increasing my technical output and making contacts along the way. It's not like I can go back in time and become a Lawyer or something, so I need to continue along this technical track as best as I know how. I do feel a little like I'm in the technical-backwaters here in Madrid, but this new job looks like it might fix that. From the conversations I had today, it looks like these guys are really focused on the right technologies and practices, etc. and there might be opportunity for advancement both here in Madrid and abroad. That's what I'm looking for... You have to think to yourself... are you going to spend the rest of your working days as a code-monkey or are you eventually going to be in the CTO's position. And if so, how and when are you going to get there? I mean, I like being a geek and getting my hands dirty, but there's limits to that... I've played that game for close to a decade now. It's getting time to look for that opportunity to transition to something more maintainable as my family grows and my mind slows. Literally, I can't keep learning new APIs, technologies and programming techniques as I go into my late 30s and 40s... it's just not going to happen. Every year that passes, internalizing new technology takes a little more effort and my mind gets a little more muddy on new concepts. Keeping up with tech and learning Spanish over the past year or so nearly broke me. As whingy as it sounds, there were days my mind just could take any more. I'm seriously slacking on the Spanish part now because I can get by, which opens my time and effort up to all sorts of other tech which is great... but it's not going to last forever. And also, there's going to be a point - and maybe I've reached it already - where more/newer/better technical understanding does not mean financial security. I probably should have thought of all this back in the late 90s in San Francisco when I was pulling down the big bucks, but oh well. Live and learn. ;-) -Russ [Russell Beattie Notebook] 11:31:02 AM    trackback []     Articulate []