Monday, September 26, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Precedent: public camera use
Ruling: Videotaping Police Is Protected Speech.
The interesting bit being that the police charged a bystander with violating a state wiretapping law, which outlaws the "secret use" of electronic surveillance devices by private citizens:
The interesting bit being that the police charged a bystander with violating a state wiretapping law, which outlaws the "secret use" of electronic surveillance devices by private citizens:
The general court further finds that the uncontrolled development and unrestricted use of modern electronic surveillance devices pose grave dangers to the privacy of all citizens of the commonwealth. Therefore, the secret use of such devices by private individuals must be prohibited.Remarkably, common sense prevailed (perhaps the judge owns a cell phone?):
The police claimed they thought Glik was only taking pictures, as opposed to a video and audio recording, but the appeals court found that "a straightforward reading of the statute and case law cannot support the suggestion that a recording made with a device known to record audio and held in plain view is 'secret.'"The lesson: make sure your equipment is in plain view when recording police, and even alert them to the fact that they are being recorded. Of course, such behavior will ensure arrest & seizure, along with a 24-36 hour run through the system (and attendant lost of wages/job/pride/etc). Do/don't damned, etc.
Monday, September 5, 2011
State of the art
How to become a great software developer.
Nicely done, sir. This list should replace the useless 'programming interview questions'.
Nicely done, sir. This list should replace the useless 'programming interview questions'.
Friday, August 5, 2011
CUDA WUDA SHUDA
GPU programming for Ruby?
Yes please, thankyouverymuch SpeedGo!
SGC-Ruby-CUDA @ github. Clone and enjoy.
Yes please, thankyouverymuch SpeedGo!
SGC-Ruby-CUDA @ github. Clone and enjoy.
Monday, August 1, 2011
The Other 90%
It has long been a maxim, in some circles, that 90% of people are not good at their jobs. Over time, this appears to hold true enough to almost be axiomatic.
This rule is often been interpreted as "90% of people are bad at their jobs", which is not necessarily true. To be good at their job, a person must a) have skill and b) care about their job. Meeting neither a) nor b) does not make a person a bad worker, but it guarantees they are not a good worker.
Where do people fail to be good at their jobs? By not having skills or by not having pride in their work.
Skill
In general, people stop learning new skills when they feel secure. The type of person that continually learns new skills is an exception and should, if possible, be kept on staff or on retainer permanently.
Why is learning new skills important? Well, consider the alternative. Your doctor has not learned a new skill since he graduated medical school 30 years ago -- do you think he can make informed decisions about your medical treatment? Your lawyer has not learned of any changes in legislature since he started his practice 10 years ago -- do you want him to advise you in court? Your software architect has not learned a new programming language since he graduated college -- do you trust his judgement in designing your next-gen product?
If someone cannot be bothered to stay up-to-date in their field, they cannot be relied upon to do good work.
Pride
Ask around, take an informal survey of your co-workers, find out why they are doing this particular job/career. If you work at a company of any decent size, or really any company that does not reward creativity or personal accomplishment, then most of answers will be along the lines of "I don't know", "I have rent/mortgage/car/kids' school to pay", or "my parents forced me to".
Why is this? Most people find their work uninteresting and unfulfilling. In fact, most people find the concept of work uninteresting and unfulfilling. What would they rather be doing? Many cannot say, but it sure as hell wouldn't be work.
Pride or care in one's work may seem like a silly or even unrealistic demand. Far from it. Ask yourself the following: Who would you rather have as a doctor -- someone who takes pride in his work, or someone who doesn't? As a mechanic? As a lawyer? As a councilman? As a contractor? As an insurance investigator? As a mailman? As a cook? As a local constabulary? As a gardener? As a DMV clerk? As a cashier?
It is difficult to find any profession where it is not preferable to have pride in one's work.
90-10
The defense given by people in the 90s is generally somewhere along the lines of "what I do isn't that important" or, even worse, "I work hard enough that I deserve to be cut some slack". The first is irrelevant and the second is always patently false. Always reach for a weapon when someone's argument relies on the phrase "I deserve".
Why is the 90-10 rule important? Actually, it's not. It's offensive, which is a lot of the fun, and it takes a bit of the frustration out of dealing with the incompetent ("ah well, you know what they say, 90% of people suck at their jobs"). Ultimately, like most made-up statistics, it is simply a rule of thumb to be applied when dealing with others in a professional capacity.
This rule is often been interpreted as "90% of people are bad at their jobs", which is not necessarily true. To be good at their job, a person must a) have skill and b) care about their job. Meeting neither a) nor b) does not make a person a bad worker, but it guarantees they are not a good worker.
Where do people fail to be good at their jobs? By not having skills or by not having pride in their work.
Skill
In general, people stop learning new skills when they feel secure. The type of person that continually learns new skills is an exception and should, if possible, be kept on staff or on retainer permanently.
Why is learning new skills important? Well, consider the alternative. Your doctor has not learned a new skill since he graduated medical school 30 years ago -- do you think he can make informed decisions about your medical treatment? Your lawyer has not learned of any changes in legislature since he started his practice 10 years ago -- do you want him to advise you in court? Your software architect has not learned a new programming language since he graduated college -- do you trust his judgement in designing your next-gen product?
If someone cannot be bothered to stay up-to-date in their field, they cannot be relied upon to do good work.
Pride
Ask around, take an informal survey of your co-workers, find out why they are doing this particular job/career. If you work at a company of any decent size, or really any company that does not reward creativity or personal accomplishment, then most of answers will be along the lines of "I don't know", "I have rent/mortgage/car/kids' school to pay", or "my parents forced me to".
Why is this? Most people find their work uninteresting and unfulfilling. In fact, most people find the concept of work uninteresting and unfulfilling. What would they rather be doing? Many cannot say, but it sure as hell wouldn't be work.
Pride or care in one's work may seem like a silly or even unrealistic demand. Far from it. Ask yourself the following: Who would you rather have as a doctor -- someone who takes pride in his work, or someone who doesn't? As a mechanic? As a lawyer? As a councilman? As a contractor? As an insurance investigator? As a mailman? As a cook? As a local constabulary? As a gardener? As a DMV clerk? As a cashier?
It is difficult to find any profession where it is not preferable to have pride in one's work.
90-10
The defense given by people in the 90s is generally somewhere along the lines of "what I do isn't that important" or, even worse, "I work hard enough that I deserve to be cut some slack". The first is irrelevant and the second is always patently false. Always reach for a weapon when someone's argument relies on the phrase "I deserve".
Why is the 90-10 rule important? Actually, it's not. It's offensive, which is a lot of the fun, and it takes a bit of the frustration out of dealing with the incompetent ("ah well, you know what they say, 90% of people suck at their jobs"). Ultimately, like most made-up statistics, it is simply a rule of thumb to be applied when dealing with others in a professional capacity.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
ARGF and friends
A (quite old) list of Perl and Awk vestiges in Ruby.
To be sure, ARGF is extremely useful, but the others really shouldn't have made it into the final design.
To be sure, ARGF is extremely useful, but the others really shouldn't have made it into the final design.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Ptrace 0.9.1
A Ruby gem providing access to the ptrace(3) facility has been added to the opdis repository . The initial version is available, as usual, at rubygems.org.
The design is similar to the BFD, Opcodes, and Opdis gems: a Ruby extension (in C) that provides a basic wrapper for the original C libraries, and a Ruby module that provides a more natural, Ruby-like interface.
Not all of the Ptrace features have been enabled or tested. Currently, the following ptrace commands are working and tested:
The design is similar to the BFD, Opcodes, and Opdis gems: a Ruby extension (in C) that provides a basic wrapper for the original C libraries, and a Ruby module that provides a more natural, Ruby-like interface.
Not all of the Ptrace features have been enabled or tested. Currently, the following ptrace commands are working and tested:
- PT_ATTACH
- PT_DETACH
- PT_TRACEME
- PT_KILL
- PT_CONT
- PT_STEP
- PS_SYSCALL
- PT_GETREGS
- PT_GETFPREGS
- PT_SETREGS
- PT_SETFPREGS
- PT_READ_I
- PT_READ_D
- PT_WRITE_I
- PT_WRITE_D
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Definitely "cattle call".
Have to say, group interviews sound like a very good way to hire very mediocre people. Getting applicants "out of their comfort zone" is great for reality television, but not for assessing their ability.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
2xV8 == V16?
A good overview of how the V8 JS compiler works. The interesting bit being the profiler thread, that causes the optimizing compiler to revisit 'hot' blocks of code.
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