jr conlin's ink stained banana

It's always interesting to see how people react to popular articles.

A few folks have commented on Duct Tape Programmer, in which we are extolled that the simple solution is always the best, regardless of whether or not it solves the complete problem. (i agree, and actually prefer to take the UNIX approach of "small programs doing one thing very well that talk to each other", but that's another point.)

Honestly, the big problem isn't some guy with a coffee cup telling you to do something complex instead of getting in your way, it's someone coming in telling you "You have to use X because that's the way things are done." It's a variant of the old story about the monkeys and the fire hose, but it's true.

Personally, i believe that having large, intertwined systems that do everything are bad ideas. It's compelling because you're working in a common environment and you don't have to go outside of any comfort zone, but it's bad because by definition, you can't swap bits out of a monolithic whole.

One of the unmentioned truths about a company providing an external API is that the biggest consumer of that API will be the company providing it. Developers will use that interface because it's simple and does most of what they need. (It's also usually documented, something that tends to be unmentioned as well.)

Where things become really interesting is when you realize that as long as you're building small, focused tools, you're not limited to using one language, system, schema or "duct tape". You got a mess of text what needs processing? Build yerself a Perl process. Wondering how to provide users a way to change things on their own? Javascript. There's no reason to use the wrong tool for any task, nor is there any reason not to use a new tool if it does. Even better, if you (or someone else) screws up and decides to build a tool using a variant of emacs Lisp that nobody else understands? You can rip it out and build it properly.

That's one of the bigger things about duct tape coding that's really hard for a lot of folks to grok. Duct tape isn't the point.

It's about solving the damn problem.

It's tech support time.

Every few years, i wind up buying my inlaws a computer. For the past 20 or so years, i also bought their dial-up. There are a few reasons i did this (one of the bigger ones was so that when i visit, i'm able to connect up and escape.) Still, after all this time, i figured it's about time to upgrade them to something more modern.

Something with USB and a network adapter, for instance.

Sadly (or happily depending on whether or not i'm looking at the bill), they're going to have to buy their own broadband since i can't gift them any. (Dear cable/phone companies. Seriously? i can't give you money? Really? That's so bizarre, because, you know, normally… ) Fortunately, minimal broadband is cheap enough in their area that i'm not particularly worried about it. They're not going to be streaming 1080p via their connection, but hell, neither am i.

While i'm there i plan on getting them a new laptop system to replace the fossil they're currently using, a USB enclosure for the old drive, and a wireless router. (Why wireless? Because i'm still going to be using it dammit, and i'll be sneaking peaks at my email while my mother in law talks about Susan Luppiccio's hip replacement.) The odd thing is that i realized that i shouldn't need my Emergency Relative CD bulk load anymore. Provided i secure the network first, isolate the old drive to prevent infection during data transfer, and do the required strip and burn of everything off of the new machine, i should be good to go. Heck, i've got a 2GB SD card (several in fact) i can put in read only and pull virus and spyware installs off of. i still plan on installing stuff like Firefox 3.5, OpenOffice, and any number of other things, but all of which are available on line.

T'is a brave new world.

And it moves much faster than before.

(thank Baud)

i think i figured out the deal with those people that walk around with little dogs. (i'll note that these are not the folks that have little dogs because they enjoy those breeds. i'm talking about the folks that blissfully ignore the "No animals except service dogs" signs at grocery stores, restaurants, markets, etc. while their high priced pure bred Pomeranian drools out of the side of it's head into a D&G knock off carrying sack. Folks with small dogs know exactly what i'm talking about and hate those idiots (both human and canine) much like how fans of pit bulls and dobermans hate folks that train those breeds for dog fighting.)

The rationale of getting a mildly retarded pocket pooch is that it's a "companion dog", something that will love you unconditionally and that will always be there for you.

In essence, what these dogs indicate is that the person carrying said ankle nipper sucks as a human being. They fail at social interaction to the point where they need the love and attention of something incapable of understanding what a complete interpersonal outcast said individual is. They need that sort of unconditional love and understanding because they're incapable of engendering it from those around them.

What they're doing is announcing to the world, "Hi. i'm a douche, but at least my designer rat loves me." They've constructed their artificial support system so that they can continue to ignore the reason they needed said artificial support system.

So really, they're doing us a huge favor. i now know exactly those folks to whom any kindness will be soundly wasted. i don't have to worry about offending said party because they've already decided that humanity was offensive to begin with. No more will my conscience bother me should the door close in their face, or if i were to take the last seat, or get the last parking spot. Their emotional support dog will be there to provide the sort of aid and comfort they know they'll need, well, once it finishes chewing through the air conditioning ducts in their BMW.

Ah, enlightenment, you bring such warmth and joy to my soul.

Plus i don't have to clean your poop out of a $300 shoulder bag.

i have a tenuous relationship with health care.

For the first 18 or so years of my life, i was on the "public option" plan in that as a military dependent, i would go to base doctors and have checkups/treatments. i received both good care, moderate, and what i now realize was fairly bad care kind of independent of where i happened to be. Pretty much like any other plan i remember being on.

i'll note that one of my grandmothers died from an over-prescription of aspirin (ASA), and that my father has been hospitalized at least twice because of pharmaceutical reactions, so i tend to avoid drugs unless absolutely necessary and for as minimal a period as possible. (i also want to know the exact nature of what i'm taking, what it does, and what it's effects are. i don't take anything that's not well understood.)

Because of this general suspicion around the medical profession, i tend not to visit doctors nearly as often as i'm informed i should. i go about once every five to seven years for a general check up. For the most part, doctors tell me i'm in good shape, which both they and i find surprising. (They because it's reasonably rare, me because i'd make the most boring action figure you can imagine.)

Thing is, i've been shopping around for a new doctor, and have discovered a few things. One of the first things i've discovered is that there are precious few plain ol' Doctors in San Jose. Most Personal Care Physicians (no, seriously, did they even think about the acronym that combination shares consonants with?), are specialists, which is great if you had respiratory issues and was interested in someone who might also look at a limp. Not so great if you don't have any over arching issues but want some help about some tendon issues in your hand. This is probably because there's damn good money in being a specialist and getting to charge high rates for said specialty. My last "general" doctor expanded his service to include a slew of other things i wasn't quite so appreciative of, quite possibly because he was interested in making more money.

This kinda leads me to the next discovery i'm not so happy to make. i think that HMOs have basically won the war. i'm on a PPO, which means that i am able to pick my doctor and service. i pay a bit extra for that privilege, but honestly, if there aren't any general practice doctors i can call on, it's kind of a useless privilege. Having zero experience with HMO's other than previously related horror stories, i'm thinking that this is where the GPs of the world have gone. You walk into the processing facility, tell the triage person what's broken, get farmed out to Dr. X who determines remedy or shunts you to Doctor Y who repeats the process. You only really hit a problem when you suddenly fall outside of that system. By trying to be smarter about things, i've managed to pre-select myself for the more difficult world.

There are a few "freelance" GPs in my area that i'll try to work through and hopefully i'll find one before i really need one. Kind of like trying to find a good car mechanic, really, only a lot less information and a lot more restrictions on where you can go.

i guess that's one of the reasons i find the whole "Health Care Debate" currently going on so damn moronic. Honestly, i don't care who pays for the service (i already know it's going to be me in some form or another), i just want to have care that doesn't make me feel a little sick every time i think about it.

Allow me to state the obvious:

The iPod Touch sucks as a portable gaming device.

No, it's got a very nice display, and the accelerometer lets you do some interesting controls with it, but i have to admit that none of the games i've played on the device have really been all that compelling.

Perhaps my non-transparent thumbs make tapping at exactly the right spot at exactly the right time a bit harder. Perhaps the fact that when my device "sleeps" because i need to suddenly do something else, the game doesn't really stop. Perhaps it's the fact that i'm used to dedicated, offset controls. (Ask anyone who's played a motion controlled driving game while on a bus or in the back of a car what it's like sometime.)

i'm sure that there may be some great game out there that really works fantastic on the iPod Touch. i'm sure it's delightful. i'm also pretty sure that i didn't buy a $60 multi-tool because it had a Phillip's head screwdriver. (Or a pair of pliers, or a knife, or any of the other single items on it.) That's because individually none of those items are fantastic and justify the price of purchase alone. It's the fact that i can have all of them (or reasonable representations of them) bundled together that made that purchase decision for me.

So, no Mr. Jobs, i don't believe that the iPod Touch is the future of portable gaming. i honestly would have preferred having a device that has features like the iPhone, except for the obviously expensive "phone" bits. i was willing to give you money for such a device even though the one i have is still working quite nicely.

(Oh yeah, also calling shenanigans on the whole "A still camera would have made the ipod thicker vs the thin CCD camera" because, you know, nobody every managed to screen-cap an image from a video stream before.)