Variation on a Theme: Regardiing my previous post

I’ve been thinking about my previous post. Just what do we “know” anyway? Just how much of our “knowledge” is based upon someone else’s idea of either what we “should” know, or even simply based on someone else’s idea of what they want to tell us?

There’s an old Chinese axiom that goes something like “the more you learn, the less you know”. I’m starting to feel that way…

1/6/2006 12:06:33 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  general

News vs. Knowledge

Cathy Young in the Y Files is reporting some interesting statistics from New Orleans and hurricane Katrina. This data completely contradicts the conventional wisdom on the storm.

Of course, this data is not news, since it doesn’t result in anyone being “blamed”. This is to be expected. Contemporary “news” is about real-life drama and astonishment, not about boring facts.

The unfortunate thing is that for many people, the news becomes what they “know” about the incident, so those “dramatic” stories regarding the aftermath of Katrina becomes their understanding of what “really happened”, and the so-called racism reported becomes enshrined in their personal history.

This is the real tragedy of Katrina: that most people won’t know what really happened there, because there’s no “story” for the media to tell.

1/6/2006 11:37:16 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  general | politics

Testing and Interfaces

Today, both Martin Fowler and Ian Griffiths wrote about Implicit Interfaces and their implications in testing.

Essentially, both Java and C# borrow a “feature” of C++, that each class implicitly has a defined interface matching its implementation (actually, in C++ each class has 3 interfaces: public, protected, and private).

Martin’s point (sort of) and Ian’s addendum are that this implicit interface can be difficult to test, and using explicit interfaces can help this issue by making “mocking” easier. Ian goes on to make a good point that what we really need is some “automatic” way to split the interface from the class.

I’d like to add one other point:

Among other things, I use unit testing to evaluate the design of my classes, and if I run into difficulty testing them, I infer that means that there is a problem with the design of the class. This philosophy has helped me out numerous times. I’ve lost track of the number of times that changes I made to a class’s interface turned out to be necessary for proper usage of the class.

So, I’d say that the difficulty that Martin would like addressed in the language is actually in the design of the class under test.

Let the flames begin

 

1/5/2006 2:17:15 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  development

Windows and IE

Today, Microsoft Watch had an article titled “Should the Windows and IE Teams go their Separate Ways?”. Here’s my own 2 cents on the subject:

Frankly, I think Microsoft has way too much of its attention paid to Windows. It seems that they are using their success in other areas more and more to shore up Windows. Not only with IE, but I see the same thing with .NET (C#, at least, should be widely available, and the .NET runtime should also), Visual Studio, and Office. While I never bought into the whole “Microsoft is a Monopoly” nonsense (depending upon how you cut it, Apple is a monopoly, Intel is a monopoly, Dell is a monopoly, etc.),  Microsoft is now placing their own interests ahead of those of their consumers. Now, this may be perfectly legal and ethical, but as a Microsoft consumer, I don’t like it, and am more and more leaning to expressing that dislike by moving on. Do you hear me, Microsoft?

1/4/2006 11:07:54 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  general | development

The (next) shoe's dropped at ReplayTV

Those of you who know me well (probably, all who read this  ), know that I’m a big fan of ReplayTV (arguably, the first DVR on the market). I don’t know whether TiVo came before it, but I sure never heard of TiVo before I’d already had my first ReplayTV installed.

Water under the bridge.

Anyway, I did my regular pilgrimage to the ReplayTV site, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but no ReplayTV models!

Then, the reason slowly appeared: ReplayTV is getting out of the hardware business. They’re saying “Coming in 2006 for the PC”. They say that this will make them profitable in a big way. We’ll see. The title of this is “next shoe” instead of “other shoe”, because I don’t think this is the end. And, I’m hoping that it’s not the end of ReplayTV DVRs. Because, there’s no way I’m going back to traditional TV, and I’d really really hate to have to buy a TiVo…

 

12/22/2005 3:48:51 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  TV | general

Turning up the volume
Michael Yon has done it again. He received an anonymous WMV of the Iraqi election that has to be seen. I was blown away by this. It’s too bad American elections can’t look like this (minus the election site searches, of course).
12/20/2005 2:38:15 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  world affairs

Today is (apparently) Gender Gap day

Today, both ComputerWorld’s Blogwatch and the Daily Grind (!) posted articles related to “women in computers”. Yawn. About the only thing related to this topic that doesn’t generate a yawn from me, is the seriousness attached to the topic by others.

To be fair, I should say that I’ve added the “I’m a geek. I’m Female…” blog to my RSS list.

This topic used to bug me. Why weren’t there more women in high tech? My early career was in both the education field, and then working in an office. Both of these areas are mostly female, so I’ve been used to having a lot of women around in the workplace. Once I made the switch to engineering, that changed dramatically. There had to be a reason.

Then, I read Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher (ISBN 0262632691). It was eye opening. According to this book, women don’t come into the field because 1) they don’t like the people (men) in the field, because they’re (the men are) too geeky (hard to argue with that point) and 2) women don’t deal positively with the kind of pressure created in the field (men tend to be optimistic toward the pressure, thinking they can conquer it. Women tend to be pessimistic toward the pressure, thinking their struggle is a direct reflection of their inability). I think its important to note that the authors are positive about getting women into computing. Their ultimate solution is to make the field more attractive/conducive to women. Sigh.

Look, it bugs me greatly that there are not more women in my field. For obvious reasons, this bugs me even more than the lack of hispanics and african-americans in the field (though there’s a shortage there too, I don’t know why). And there are indeed a lot of jerks in the field (hey, I’ve had to work with them too. I don’t much like it either). But there isn’t any discrimination going on (except, apparently, among women), so lets get on with our lives!

Whew! Okay, enough of this.

 

12/19/2005 12:03:35 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  general

Being American

Today, Morgan Freeman was quoted in a Yahoo News article as calling Black History Month “ridiculous”. Amen.

I’ve thought quite a bit about the issue over the past months. Like (almost) all Americans, I’m a descendant of immigrants. And, like the vast majority of immigrant descendants in the US, I’m NOT descended from the Pilgrims. They were a bunch of intolerant Protestants from England. My ancestors were a bunch of Portuguese from various Portuguese colonies in the Atlantic and Chinese from China. And yet, every November I, along with all those other descendants of non-Pilgrim immigrants, celebrate Thanksgiving. Why is this? Certainly, my heritage doesn’t include that first Thanksgiving the Pilgrims and their Indian (okay, Native American) friends celebrated. Or does it?

While my Portuguese and Chinese heritages don’t include that first Thanksgiving, my American heritage does. Yes, that’s right. For those of us who are citizens (and possibly some of us who aren’t), our heritage also includes America. Now, I happen to be very proud of my American heritage (also my Portuguese and Chinese heritages, but that’s another story). So, celebrations of holidays like Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Independence Day give me an opportunity to celebrate my American heritage.

So, what does this have to do with Black History Month?

Here’s the thing: I’m not descended from any African American slaves (or any other American slaves for that matter, there were others). This doesn’t mean that I don’t have anything in common with those slaves. Slavery was a fundamental part of the founding of America. We ended up fighting a war among ourselves over it (don’t be fooled by revisionist talk; if there had been no slavery, there wouldn’t have been a “wedge issue” to divide the states at the time of the civil war).

The way I see it, as all Americans are descended in spirit from that small group of Pilgrims celebrating thanks in Plymouth colony, all Americans are descended from those slaves that were imported to America from Africa, and did so much to make this country what it is today.

So, since there’s no Pilgrim History Month, there should be no Black History Month. As Morgan Freeman says, its all just American History, and we should be teaching it that way. They don’t teach the history of the Congo or Botswana in Black History Month, they teach the lives of great Americans, like Frederick Douglass and George Washington Carver (to name just a couple of great Americans). We shouldn’t be thinking of it as “those people’s history”, its all of our history too.

So, for those of you who may remember my question of “Why is Rosa Parks like Priscilla Alden?”, they were both great Americans. And I’m proud to be included with both of them (even if I have no idea what Priscilla Alden really did for us all).

12/15/2005 2:54:23 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  general

Amazing Race Finale

Frankly, I don’t know of any of you out there that might care about this, but since I do, here it is.

Last night was the Amazing Race finale, and it was quite an experience. The previous season wasn’t as exciting at the end (though I was a huge Rob & Amber fan). This one was very good. I was shocked that the Linz’s won. All I was hoping for was that the Weavers would not win, they were such mean spirited players. The Bransons definitely were the best players in the game and certainly deserved to be there at the end.

Anyway, congratulations, Linz’s! While I was surprised about the win, I was rooting for you guys all along.

12/14/2005 2:06:07 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  TV

Math problems

Something has to be wrong with my information or calculations.

I’ve been doing some investigation, and, in 2004, the national murder rate in the U.S. was 5.5 per 100,000 people.

According to the CIA, the US population is 295,734,134.

This means that in 2004, approximately 16,000 people were murdered. Is this right? What am I doing wrong? This can’t be right. That’s sixteen thousand people murdered last year.

I can’t believe that this is correct…

12/14/2005 12:02:46 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)      Comments [0]  general | politics | world affairs