Archive for the ‘Bedtime Stories’ Category

Read the Manual

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

The theme of this months newsletter has been more of a “RTM” tutorial then about Java code. I have a long history of the “RTM” way of learning new technology. Of course it started with my Father. Although he was a dairy farmer, he always had an interest in radios. He had taken a correspondence course from “Radio Institute” in Chicago. Illinois. A complete set of manuals in radio repair was part of me before I was even born.

The local home town library always had a copy of the “ARRL – Radio Amateurs Handbook”. Did I become a radio amateur? No. Something about you had to be able to send and receive the “Morse Code” with some proficiency.

In college, the professors were always giving you programming projects. I had one professor who suggested that this project could be done very easily in Fortran. “But professor I don’t know any Fortran.” The answer, “ The book is in the library, Read It.”

Now a small story from my recent history, instead of my ancient past. The local book story has a nice lady that is in charge all the computer books. You go in there and you often find her sitting on a big stack of books. Of course there is no chairs to set on in a Philippine book store. I have noticed one thing. She does get smarter every time I see her. In college the idea was to put the book under your pillow and sleep on it. Setting on the book to learn its content is new to me.

Even more recently I read an article from the online New York Times. The piece start out about how the youth of today are TV and game junkies. The youth only have an attention span of three seconds. The text then turned to a comparison between the movie “The Hulk” and the latest book from the “Harry Potter” episodes. The comparison was made on the sales volume and gross income.

The opening one day book sales of “Harry Potter” was estimated at $100 million. The opening weekend of “The Hulk” movie was $62 million. Since they opened on the same weekend the movie attendants declined. The authors comment was “… they sat down and read the book perhaps explaining … the decreasing ticket sales of the movie. (Another likely factor: the movie itself.)”.

A good reading habit is a life long source for new ideas and intellectual development. Maybe we should give more credit to our youth for choosing value over a quick multimedia scheme for our leisure hours.

All of this points out that there was never any teacher for the thing I was interested in. If your at the head of the technology curve, your it. You are the only person at the top of the mountain, there is only room for one at the top.

A quote from the root “HTML is a table. A Server is a script.”. Now this means I need to do more RTM (Read the Manual). I just can’t decide, would I learn more if I stuck the book under my pillow or if I sat on it? I guess it depends which end is closest to the brain.

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Object Containers

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

This reminds me of a true life story that happened to me only a few month ago. I have the habit of putting things somewhere and then forgetting where I put it.

Of course my original thinking is that someone walked off with it or just borrowed it and forgot to return it. I have to be very careful about making false accusations. Ninety nine times out of a hundred it is me that is in error.

The story is that I have some antique calculators and digital cameras (yes antique digital camera). NJ the 5 year old boy that was staying with me was playing with them as if they were his toys. I thought I place the on top of the bookcase where they are display as a museum peace. The next day they where gone I couldn’t find them.

I look for them for about 6 months and my only conclusion was that they were stolen by some of my students. Well guess what? About 3 weeks ago, well looking for something else, I found them on the top shelve in a closet in my bed room in Cebu Philippines.

Mmmm think. “Universe - World - Philippines - Cebu - house - room - closet - box”. A bunch of object containers, arranged left to right, such that, the  left contains the right.  This describes the exact location of the object camera. Wow! I sound like a geeky computer programmer and the nerds on the TV program “The Big Bang Theory”. Yeks! I think I’m turning into an object and losing my soul. The soul is only thing in this universe that is not an object.

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The Tong Business is getting Tough

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

Last week I was riding on a jeepney at the corner of Gorordo and Arch Reyes. This is a busy intersection close to one of the major shopping malls here in Cebu. There is always a tong taker at this corner. He’s suppose to direct traffic and load your jeepney with new passengers. Of course it is illegal for jeepneys to stop here. It’s to close to the intersection and cause big traffic tie ups. So he also has to pay the traffic enforcer or the traffic enforcer will run him off.

He collects a peso from the jeepney drivers for this service. A jeepney is a conversion of a military jeep in to a bus for public transportation. The tong man will not let the jeepney stop at his corner if you don’t pay the tong. He will chase you off.

Well the tong business has taken a new twist. The home made spite wad gun is popular with the street kids here in Cebu. I remember we used to make these when I was a kid. An art I learned from my Father. We would use a branch from a mulberry bush. It had a hollow or soft center and you could push it out with a stiff wire. A hard wood stick was then carved and fitted into the hollow tube. A couple of spit wads and Walla! A Pop gun!

Here in the Philippines the kids use the trunk of small bamboo tree. Now if you have a little money, you are able to buy a plastic pre-made pop gun that shoots small plastic pellets. These have been popular for about a year. Now the new trend in pellet guns is much bigger model and more realistic looking.

Well to end this story, the tong taker had a big old pellet gun sticking out of his back pocket. Big enough for all jeepney drivers and traffic enforcers to see. Mmmm don’t pay the tong. Bang! bang your dead. The tong business is getting more serious.

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Know Who and Know How and You Know All

Friday, July 10th, 2009

When I was living in Phoenix Arizona, I had a friend and business partner that always played golf and then visited the local pub. He was one of the regulars. As you know in a bar or pub, you could always get into some kind of a discussion (or argument) about anything in general. A long standing topic was the personalities of the regular patrons. They would give each other some kind of a nick name and use it in their greetings when that someone walk in. Of course this was just bar talk and everybody just had a good time.

The topic of a remembered conversation was the words “self aggrandizement “. The friend claimed I was a self aggrandizing person. When I ask what he meant  by that. I got the answer  “Well it’s in the dictionary, look it up” (Mmmm! The classic RTM -Read the Manual- response). My response was “Your an aggravating person, You can’t even spell that word.”. Well to end the suspense, the word means — self promotion –, you only think about yourself and your personal goals.

Well this friend and I was none of the above. And us two combatants where always great friends. He was a salesman and marketing person. He was just using “Reflection” to find out who people are and what they are all about.

Could we apply these words to some of today’s leaders and politicians. Mmmm! I think the word fits very well but we will leave any more comment to readers.

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Innovation

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

For our story for this month we again visit the television programs I remember form my past. The TV channel I enjoyed the most was the public supported station PBS (Public Broadcasting System) or in the UK the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). These are station that are supported by federal tax money and from local community contributions.

There was a program called “Connections” hosted by James Burke. Connections told the story of how two different technologies where combined to create a new technology. The show tracked over a period of centuries the history of two technology and how they were combined in modern times to create a new idea.

An example would be that you can’t make a sword until you know how to melt and cast metal. You can’t make a light bulb until you have produced and can distribute electricity. Or you can’t write Java code if computers where never invented.

So let’s follow the track of Java. Where did it come from and how was the light bulb turn on in the mind of James Gosling, the inventor of Java. For that answer we can ask ourselves a series of questions: “If there was no …? Then there is no invention of …” If there is no computers there is no Java. If there is no transistors there is no computers. If there is no periodic table there is no transistors. If there is no chemistry the is no periodic table.

Now we need a companion track. For this I will use the invention of the notes and staff used to write code for music. What are the technologies that had to proceed the invention of the language of music?

Why do I choose music as the companion track? Music is a language. Music appeals to the right side brain. Music is standard all over the world. And where did James Gosling see the light bulb? At a rock concert . The right brain made a connect with the left brain. Java! Music! — Logic! Beauty! Yes, a computer language that is like the music language. Runs anywhere and universal to all users.

Was the idea of an intermediate byte code (Java compiles to a byte code that is then interpreted by the virtual machine) a new idea for Java. No, I remember that Pascal had compiler that generated a intermediate code called p-code. A new idea is not necessarily new. I could be just a better fit to the task at hand.

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The Birthday Party

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

I was tempted to tell a story about my big one heart throb I had during high school and college. Then I changed my mind to save myself the embarrassment So I have turn to my more immediate love affairs. These includes my life style in the Philippines. The people I meet here and day to day interactions with the local people.

My most recent experience was the birthday party of a six year old boy I have claim as my son. He calls me “Daddy” and he has lived with me since he was a baby. His native language is English, but speaks two other languages fluently. His name is Ness Joelius Inocente. We call him NJ.

Actually we had two birthday parties. Party one was birthday cake and attended by the family. Party two was the kids on the street with 1 peso candy and games. Remembering my grade school days when the teacher would let the birthday person pass out a small treat to your classmates. This was only a three minute party and after you passed out your treat, it was back to your lessons.

For our street party NJ and I bought about 40 pieces of bubble gum and candy from the neighborhood store. All we had to do was walk a short distance and we had 20 kids following us. I put the candy in a larger plastic bag and NJ offered it to the kids. Have you ever seen 20 hands in a plastic grocery sack at the same time? Needless to say the candy was gone within seconds. Did NJ get any candy from the sack? No. Did he complain? No.

The older girls started to organize some games and we spent over an hour playing “Hide n Seek”, “Tag”, “You’re It”, “Hop Scotch” and some games I’m not familiar with. I do think NJ enjoyed his street birthday party the best. I know I did. And one thing that did help, I think NJ is in love with the girl next door. He won’t admit it but he always speaks to her. Ahhh! to be young again — and in love.

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