The Old Blog

I used to run a Wordpress blog with random thoughts and other content; it fell by the wayside around the time I started working for UHN.

I’ve pulled some of that content over here for history purposes. This is all a decade or two old, so don’t take it too seriously.

4 Oct. 2002

Amorous Ostriches

From my friend Greg Wilson; source unknown:

British poultry farmers trying to raise ostriches in the 1990s called in scientists to find out why their birds were failing to breed. Careful observations confirmed the birds were courting the farm workers rather than each other, Norma Bubier of Pro-Natura UK and colleagues reported in a seminal paper in British Poultry Science (vol 39, p 477), entitled “Courtship behavior of ostriches toward humans under farming conditions in Britain”.

1 Oct. 2002

Desktop Linux

So Red Hat 8.0 is out, and supposedly (according to the reviews) has a nicer desktop experience than in the past.

Windows is vexing me.

There are two versions of WINE floating around now; one that will run most OpenGL games, and the other that supports MS Office, and will run many multimedia browser plugins under Mozilla.

The only thing I really use Windows for (at home) these days is browsing, games, a couple of relatively innocuous utilities, and the enormous Excel spreadsheet that is my Rolemaster character.

1 Oct. 2002

IPv6 again

I discovered that I was actually using IPv6 (quite successfully) when I turned it off and a bunch of things broke.

So the state now is:

  • I’ve re-enabled IPv6 on the cfrq.net network.
  • I’ve disabled IPv6 on Windows, since that’s what was really bugging me.
  • I’m still running Apache 1.3.26; it supports PHP, and I haven’t rebuilt PHP for Apache 2.0.40 yet.
  • I’ve shot zebra dead as a doornail, and I’m back to using static routes. With my CIPE patch for detecting the liveliness of the network connection, this gives me relatively efficient routing even in the face of my ever mobile laptop.

The experiment continues…

30 Sep. 2002

Network effects over-rated?

A new book by Stan Liebowitz, called “Re-Thinking the Network Economy”, has some interesting insights. This
Economist.com article discusses one, namely that the principle of “first to market” was completely bogus.

The “network effect” describes the condition that a product’s value increases with the popularity of the product to consumers. The typical example is the telephone; one is useless, and the more people have a telephone, the more useful one is.

27 Sep. 2002

Transit Spin

Apparently the Toronto Transit System is getting flak from commuters. Seems that whenever someone is late for work, they blame it on a TTC delay. The TTC wants to reassure us that the transit system is running just fine…

Today I hear on CBC Radio that (paraphrased): using data up to the end of August, the Bloor Danforth line is running on schedule 95% of the time, and the Yonge University Spadina line is running on time 90% of the time.

20 Sep. 2002

IPv6 revisited

Since I enabled IPv6 on www.cfrq.net, I’ve received no IPv6 traffic other than my own, and a couple of curious onlookers from the IPv6 webbug’s log site.

I’ve been having lots of trouble with zebra; several bugs in OSPF6D and RIPNGD continue to plague me, so I can’t keep dynamic routes up-to-date. Static routing is too much work, especially with my laptop which changes networks at least twice per day.

IPv6 on Windows 2000 works ok, but often when I apply an IE service pack, it updates wininet.dll, removing the IPv6 support in the browser. I can re-run the IPv6 installer to put it back, but I wonder what bug fixes I’m stomping on as a result.

31 Aug. 2002

Where did summer go?

10 weeks ago I was wondering what I was going to do to fill the summer. Work was relatively stable, and I had a few weeks of vacation planned with the kids.

I took a week off, and did a bunch of stuff around the house. Then the kids were in summer camp for six weeks. This turned out to be a good thing because my job went insane, as did Michaéla’s. A bunch of high-profile customers all wanted relatively large code changes all at once, and my developers (annoyingly) kept going on business trips or vacations! Six weeks went past in a flash, and suddenly I was on vacation with two kids (and no spouse), with no idea of what to do.

17 Aug. 2002

Star Trek Does It Again

Star Trek Does it Again.

It seems that, in the wake of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a bunch of German researchers have (almost :-) invented “transparent aluminum”. (Actually, they’ve invented transparent aluminum oxide, a ceramic not a metal).

Naturally, people are already coming up with applications.

14 Aug. 2002

Whiteboards Are Good

Cognitive Properties of a Whiteboard: A Case Study in a Trauma Centre

Abstract.

Distributed cognition as an approach to collaborative work holds that a work unit is cognitive system in which cognitive activities are carried out jointly by workers with the use of tools. This approach has several direct implications to the study of collaborative work. In this paper, we analysed staff interactions with a large display board in a Level I trauma centre operating room unit. Coordination needs are exacerbated by the unpredictability of incoming emergency surgery patients admitted to the trauma centre as well as other contingencies (such as changes in scheduled surgery cases or staffing). The public display board has evolved into a key component for supporting collaborative work. The physical and perceptual properties of the board are exploited by the clinicians to support rapid paced, highly dynamic work. The canvas-like appearances of the display board, combined with magnetic objects attached to the board, afford its users to taylor the board as an effective coordinative tool and to invent new ways of representing information. Based on the concept of display-based cognition, our analysis illustrates the role of public displays in facilitating negotiation of scheduling, joint planning, and augmenting inter-personal communication.

12 Aug. 2002

Toiler Paper Algorithms

I never knew you needed to be a computer scientist to use toilet paper. Good thing I am one!

Our self-observations revealed that we really didn’t use the random algorithm — people are seldom random. The most natural: that is, we soon discovered, was to reach for the larger roll. Alas, consider the impact. Suppose we start with two rolls, A and B, where A is larger than B. With algorithm large, paper is taken from A, the larger of the two rolls until its size becomes noticeably smaller than the other roll, B. Then, paper is taken from B until it gets smaller than A, at which point A is preferred. In other words, the two rolls diminish at roughly the same rate, which means that when A runs out of paper, B will follow soon thereafter, stranding the user with two empty rolls.

29 Jul. 2002

Camping Trip

We took the kids on their first camping trip this weekend. It rained so heavily on Friday that we decided to drive into town; we couldn’t see the car in front of us on the road. Saturday was much better; misty in the morning, but the sun came out in the afternoon. Of course, Sunday morning the rain returned, and gave everything a thorough soaking just before we had to pack it all up and head home.

17 Jul. 2002

What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?

I’m overweight, and I’ve been having trouble dealing with that. I know people who are doing quite well on the Atkins diet, but several people I trust had convinced me it was a bad idea.

What if It’s All Been a Big Fat Lie? (Update: the article is archived at a diabetes site now)

The research community has been recommending low-fat diets for 25 years, based on (it turns out) very little justification. And it’s hard to argue the fact that humans cannot have evolved in a carb rich environment, because we’ve been farming for less than 10,000 years.

15 Jul. 2002

Over the Edge

Spent the weekend at Over The Edge, the Toronto Kite Fliers annual fun fly. The weather was great, sunny and hot both days. Over The Edge is held at Ajax Waterfront Park, which usually has good winds. Well, mostly; when the wind is off the lake it tends to roll up and over the field, so the winds are fine 100’ up, but lower or non-existant at ground level. Naturally, it was like this both days :-)

9 Jul. 2002

Paintball Extreme

Tippmann Hellhound
The Tippman Hellhound is a jeep. With a 10-barrel, 50 round-per-second chain gun (powered by a variable speed drill!). It has a 6,000 round ammo hopper, a grenade launcher, 15 lb air tanks (so you never run out of pressure) and on and on.

Proving, once again, that some people have too much time on their hands.

8 Jul. 2002

The Range Visit

Frank TCGN took me to the firing range this weekend. Wow, what a blast!

The day started with the usual last minute packing. Travelling down an apartment elevator with eight firearms and associated ammo is an experience. We hit the road at around noon (only an hour late :-), and arrived at the range at about 1:30 PM. We had the place to ourselves; the last guy from a previous group was on his way out just as we arrived.

8 Jul. 2002

Supermarket Cards and Segmentation

Supermarket Cards: An Overview of the Pricing Issues

Synopsis: supermarkets raise their prices, then “discount” them back to the original level to “reward” their loyal, dedicated customers. In the process, they re-orient the entire store to serve the small-but-profitable group of loyal customers.

Welcome to the free market economy :-)