Jim’s Brain Online

Posted by Jim at March 10th, 2004

I’m currently working the graphic user interface to the file sharing project I’m doing for my distributed systems class.

I have six stages to doing programming assignments:

1. Avoidance: In which I make a half-hearted beginning and then avoid thinking about the assignment. It can also mean that I’ve stopped thinking about a particular feature and decided to work on something else.
2. Panic: The point at which I realize I should be further along than I am.
3. Research: I realize that I don’t know how to certain things so I check out the associated API’s. I then know what approach I’m going to take.
4. Joy: I start moving along on the assignment and remember what I love about programming–constantly overcoming obstacles.
5. Frustration: I hit small details of the program that despite my best efforts just aren’t working.
6. Finish: Programs, like poems, aren’t so much finished as abandoned. Despite a kind of latent perfectionism, I do realize that the finished program does not have to have every single bug worked out. Some can be left for later–or never if the prof doesn’t care about certain features.

I don’t always do this all in a row. I think that I actually repeat all of these stages for every major feature in a program.

Avoidance is a useful technique when I hit a particuarly annoying problem and become frustrated. Sometimes the solution hits me while working on something else. Sometimes it doesn’t, but I’m always more likely to solve the problem when I’m not frustrated than when I am.

Anyway… Back to programming…

Posted by Jim at March 10th, 2004

I’m part of the 13% of the nation that does not have either cable, dish, or some other means of getting zillions of channels. This means that I am mostly unaware of cable tv shows until they get so popular they actually make it to network television.

Bearing in mind that I watch approximately an hour of tv a week (none of it intentional), I may not even be aware of them then.

My wife, however, does intentionally watch tv. Thus, I sometimes end up watching due to the fact that our computers are in the same room as the television.

That’s how I finally ended up seeing a few episodes of “Queer Eye.” I’d review the show, but most of the world has seen or heard about it at this point and has their own opinions.

I’ve just got one comment:

Nate’s right. Jai is irrelevant.

Posted by Jim at March 7th, 2004

There’s a scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in which Indiana Jones desperately attempts to hang on to a truck while the driver (a Nazi soldier) attempts to shake him off.

We reenact this scene weekly at the grocery store.

In the infinite wisdom of D&W (the grocery store we visit most often), someone recently decided to replace the old “special childrens’ carts” with new “special childrens’ carts.” The old carts apparently looked too much like what they really are–rolling straightjackets.

With very little work, the old carts allowed parents to competely immobilize their children, making it surpisingly easy to take toddlers to the grocery store. Needless to say, children hated them.

The new carts take a different approach. They look like toy trucks that happen to have a grocery cart instead of a flatbed. The children (theoretically) sit in the cab.

Due to the new carts’ popularity, the seat belts turn out to be damaged more than half the time (and thus don’t work). This would be more annoying if Abby hadn’t figured out how to open them.

Now things are an awful lot like “Raiders” except that we’re trying to keep Abby safely inside while she attempts to:

1. ride on the roof,
2. lean backwards out the front where a windshield ought to be
3. hang out the side windows
4. point out all free samples
5. point out any product with particularly garish (and therefore appealing) packaging
6. reach back into the groceries for anything that looks particularly good.

I’m not sure I want to know what percentage of our sentences include the phrase “Abby, please sit down.”

As for our other daughter, Rebecca… She’s still small enough to fit in the child seat at the back of the cart. Thus she’s strapped in and high off the ground.

Someday, however, she will be too big for that seat. After that, they will both have to “sit” in the cab.

You can imagine just how much I look forward to that.

Posted by Jim at March 6th, 2004

I’ve got way, way too many books.

A couple years ago, we had our basement redone into a family room/entertainment area. Among other things, we had shelves for books put into the walls. Within the last week, we finally got around to some finishing touches for those walls and were able to move in the books.

That’s what I did for most of this evening.

For the first time in several years, I’m able to see most of my (and my wife’s) books at one time. The collection includes science fiction, computer related books (languages, databases, distributed systems, usability), religion (hebrew, koine greek, ancient culture, church history, missiology), sociology (social theory, social research, statistics), and social work (individual therapy, group therapy, family therapy, social research).

And that’s just the catagories which take up large chunks of shelving. Also in there are comics, poetry, graphic design history & practice,books about writing, humor (David Barry, David Sedaris…) and an eclectic selection of other books (an example: “Our Friend, the Atom”).

Sixty feet of shelving and not everything fits. We’ve still got a few books on the floor of our bedroom.

Posted by Jim at March 4th, 2004

Kristen and I postponed Valentine’s Day one week.

When we did celebrate, we went to San Chez Bistro.

San Chez Bistro serves Tapas foods. What’s that? A long time ago Spanish bartenders started putting food on top of the drinks they served. Tapas is the cuisine that developed out of that idea.

They don’t balance it on top of the mugs anymore, but it is interesting. The portions are small. You order several different dishes and find that you’re full faster than you’d expect. That’s the good news. You also spend money faster than you’d expect. It’s one of the more expensive restaurants we go to.

That being said, it’s cheaper than good sushi.

San Chez serves a mixture of Spanish, Carribean, and Mediterranean food.

Here’s what we had:

1. A black bean, corn, red pepper, and cream salsa.
2. Pheasant and snake sausage.
3. An asparagus cassorole, placed on toasted bread.
4. Flan (for dessert)

I don’t know what kind of snake was in the sausage. The server may have said rattlesnake once, but the menu wasn’t specific–and the crowd was noisy, so I may have been hearing things.

Oh… And to drink… double chocolate stout.

It was all good.

One cool thing about San Chez is that the waiters actually know what they’re talking about. They can intelligently talk about the effects of different types of containers on beer. They also know about the food and can explain what certain things are.

I recommend San Chez to all–assuming you aren’t bringing kids and assuming you’re willing to try foods you’ve never heard of before.

Posted by Jim at March 3rd, 2004

As we all step into that hideous mass of discussing politics and flinging random insults that characterizes an election year, I have to ask myself a fairly basic question.

Where do I fit in politically anyway?

I’ve got no excuse for not having a good answer to this. My dad has taught political science at Hope College for my entire life. So it’s not as if I haven’t been exposed to the basic ideas of recent politics.

To the contrary, I have memories of camping that go as follows:

The sun fell beneath the horizon hours ago. I sit, reading a book, while the embers of the campfire glow red. A Coleman lantern dimly lights the picnic table and our family’s tent.

Still, despite the apparent emptiness of the forest, a human voice rings out in the darkness.

It’s Walter Mondale.

Dad has run an extension cord to the nearest outlet, plugged in the radio and is listening to the Democratic Convention.

Ah, the summers of my youth…

According to one online test, I lean left–but I’m not sure if that really describes my perspective well.

I’d describe myself as moderate. I believe free trade is a good thing, but I’m not against protection in some situations–I believe free trade works better for most societies in the long run. I’m for limited government, but think social programs are useful and suspect that (for example) universal health care might ultimately cost less than our current system.

I’m not against investing a person’s social security partially into the stock market.

I am against the death penalty.

I’m also against abortion. I do believe it’s murder, but I’m also against having women abort their babies with knitting needles, hangers, etc… So, I don’t believe a simple ban will work, but I’m not against limiting the period during which it might be done.

I could go on about various positions I have for quite some time, but the gist of the situation is that neither party really fits me. Or, to look at things from a half full perspective, both parties’ moderate wings fit me.

Unfortunately, moderates don’t fit particularly well in either party.