With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. » Uncategorized

Plan 9 From Mountain View

slinky — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:31:58 +0000

There comes a time in each man’s life that he can’t even believe his own eyes.

A new programming language has emerged from Google. It’s called Go.

And one thing is certain, someone’s responsible!

These people are Rob Pike, Ken Thompson (of the Plan 9 fame), and Robert Griesemer.

I’ll bet my badge right now we haven’t seen the last of those weirdies.

(You might want to read this also.)

Server Updated

slinky — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:12:58 +0000

The server was updated, hopefully everything works now. This is also a kind of test post, so please ignore it…

Sometimes Hollywood is Stranger than Fiction

slinky — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 19:05:07 +0000

First, there was Mr. Samuel Jackson, who grew weary of “these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane”. That movie, and especially that utterance became an instant Internet meme (WARNING: contains spoilers).

Then, in a bizarre twist of cosmic happenstance, reality emulated Hollywood. Yet more snakes on the plane.

Hands-On Demonstration of the Week

slinky — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:21:53 +0000

Tahoe-LAFS is a decentralized fault tolerant file system. When Zooko was demonstrating it, he wanted to show how the system stays up even when a node fails.

And to demonstrate node failure, he went postal with AN AXE :)

Advances in High-Energy Organic Chemistry

slinky — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:49:04 +0000

Abstract: We have empirically observed, for the first time, an accurate reading for the half-life of a combined chocolate-mint crush bar (M_f) having an initial mass of 200 grams. During the observations, the mass of the M_f underwent Zeta decay from 200 g to 100 g within about 310 seconds, causing an instantaneous measured energy gain of 7.0805 kJ/s in the observers. The instantaneous energy gain observation is consistent with the five-dimensional space-time manifold Rye-Ergot vertex postulate of the super-string “many worlds” theory [McKenna77].

SEI SAPP and the Art of Staying Frosty

slinky — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:52:40 +0000

I got my CMU Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Software Architecture Professional Programme (SAPP) certificate today.

It was a two-part course, consisting of “Software Architecture: Principles and Practices”, “Documenting Software Architectures”, “Software Architecture Design and Analysis” and “Software Product Lines”.

During the course I also learnt how to stay frosty.

You see, the hotel/spa where we were in Finland for the first part of the course, had a cryotherapy room.

This means a small, liquid nitrogen cooled room with a temperature of -110 C (-166 degrees Fahrenheit).

One goes into the room wearing nothing but swimming trunks (and a skiing cap, mittens and woolen socks) and stays there for 3 minutes.

Yes, it is so cold that normal air becomes a wall of vapor. The room makes eerie noises due to some strange thermal effects. You have to blink your eyes a lot. And I remember that the tip of my nose went totally numb.

But… it was fun!

All in all, the course and associated activities was a very interesting learning experience, both mentally and physically. I can wholeheartedly recommend the course to anyone working in an architect role within the software industry.

Teräsbetoni ESC2008 Translated

slinky — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:36:16 +0000

For the benefit of my friends who have yet to embrace the beautiful Finnish language, here is a translation of Finland’s Eurovision Song Contest 2008 song, “Missä miehet ratsastaa” by Teräsbetoni.

Update! Originally, googling for the lyrics found nothing – however, later I found the official translation from Yle’s page. The lyrics are also there in French, “La bataille appelle les héros” and all that.

Here’s the original lyrics:

Huh! Hah! Huh! Hah!
Huh! Hah! Huh! Hah!
Olkoon myrsky sekä viima
Ja tuvassa lämmin kamiina
On kunnia ja miehuullisuus
Suorittaa velvollisuus
Maailma on kylmä vaikka
On ehkä lämmölläkin paikka
Kentät kutsuu sankareita
Eikä suinkaan pelkureita
Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä lampaat ei voi laiduntaa
Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä kuulee susien ulvontaa
Huh! Hah! Huh! Hah!
Olkoon edessä tuhoa
Ja takana lemmen lumoa
On miehellä velvollisuus
Muistaa urhoollisuus
Ei kukaan voi välttää kipua
Ja vain elämän virrassa lipua
Kentät kutsuu sankareita
Eikä suinkaan pelkureita
Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä lampaat ei voi laiduntaa
Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä kuulee susien ulvontaa
Missä miehet, missä miehet ratsastaa
Missä miehet, missä miehet ratsastaa
Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä lampaat ei voi laiduntaa
Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä kuulee susien ulvontaa
Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä lampaat ei voi laiduntaa
Missä miehet ratsastaa
Siellä kuulee susien ulvontaa
Missä miehet… Hah! Huh! Hah!
Missä miehet… Hah! Huh! Hah!

And here’s the non-rhyming translation (I guess you’ll get the gist even without rhymes):

Huh! Hah! Huh! Hah!
Huh! Hah! Huh! Hah!
Let there be storm and wind
And in the home a warm stove
It is an honor and manhoodiness [*]
To fulfill the duty
The world is cold although
There is a place for warmth maybe
The fields are calling heroes
And not at all cowards
Where men ride
There lambs may not graze
Where men ride
One can hear wolves howling
Huh! Hah! Huh! Hah!
May we face destruction
And have enchantment of love behind us
A man has a duty
To remember the heroics
No-one can avoid the pain
And just float in the flow of life
The fields are calling heroes
And not at all cowards
Where men ride
There lambs may not graze
Where men ride
One can hear wolves howling
Where men, where men ride
Where men, where men ride
Where men ride
There lambs may not graze
Where men ride
One can hear wolves howling
Where men ride
There lambs may not graze
Where men ride
One can hear wolves howling
Where men… Hah! Huh! Hah!
Where men… Hah! Huh! Hah!

[*] I know it sounds wrong, but “miehuullisuus” is IMO a bit dodgy word for something implying a lot of manhood, so I tried to preserve that as best as I could.

NB, the name of the song, translated to English, is “Where men ride”.

My New Training Regime

slinky — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 10:56:00 +0000

1. Develop pollen allergy
2. Sneeze 5.14 billion times a day
3. Develop huge abdominal muscles in the process

I’m well into steps 1 and 2 now. ‘Tis the time of the year, indeed. At least the Cetirizine HCl generics are cheap.

Software Engineering Truth of the Day

slinky — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:30:18 +0000

“Weeks of coding can save you days of planning”. It’s funny, because it’s true – and not only that, it surely applies to other fields as well! A true gem.

Put Your Hands Up for the Voiced Uvular Fricative

slinky — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:10:37 +0000

Currently I am in Sweden, working in Ronneby which is some 30 km distance from Karlskrona, where I’m staying. I can honestly say the Blekingska/Skånska dialects (listen) demand quite some getting used to before one can properly make out words and/or have a meaningful conversation, especially if one happens to be a product of the Finnish education system where the emphasis on learning Swedish is on (retrospectively thinking ridiculously clearly articulated) Finlandssvenska.