Archive for January, 2008
January 16, 2008 · Filed under Entertainment
I get very interested in news and events that are typically of a scientific nature and have little direct impact on daily life here on Earth. I believe most people refer 
to this condition as “being a dork”.
Be that as it may, there are many bits of practical information that come out of these stories - if you know where to look. Lets review a few recent events:
Scientists discover that black holes spin at near the speed of light
We think these monster black holes are spinning close to the limit set by Einstein’s theory of relativity, which means that they can drag material around them at close to the speed of light.
A lot of you probably think this has little impact on your daily life, but it’s not true. I am pretty sure the average human would get dizzy spinning at the speed of light, so that tells me two things about Black Holes: they are probably not human, and they don’t care about making people dizzy. That will impact my strategy next time I see one coming for me.
It appears that Mercury’s iron core is shrinking, causing the planet to collapse
Mercury could be shrinking as its core slowly freezes. Pictures from Mariner 10 revealed the planet’s surface appears to have buckled from within, resulting in gigantic cliffs more than a mile high and hundreds of miles long biting into Mercury.
Obviously, if it can happen to Mercury, it can happen to Earth. While all you suckers who ignore this kind of important information sit around and watch America’s Next Top Dingbat, I’ll be working on my evacuation plan for when the world implodes. It will involve a parachute because I’m not going to miss the opportunity to base jump off the mile-high cliff where my house used to be.
And those are just two examples. Think of all the other crap you’re missing.
January 11, 2008 · Filed under Entertainment
We have a notoriously treacherous staircase. It has a turn in it and everything. If you don’t have a super honed technique for navigating a tiered system of steps, 
you could get seriously worked over by that thing. I’ve seen it happen more than once, and it can get ugly real fast.
I’m pretty much awesome at stairs. I might be one of the best ‘Steppers I know; sometimes I’ll even take two at a time, in a move I call the “Step Two Alternate”. There are almost no stairs I can’t handle. If I were to hand out some free advice to novice ‘Steppers, it might be to not bite off more than you can chew, because you don’t want to pull anything.
But even at my level of ‘Stepping, things can go bad, and they almost did yesterday. I totally wiped out.
Once Michelle was assured that I was alright (it takes a lot to shake me up because I’m so tough), her face shifted into an expression that did little to hide her amusement and said, “Some time I’m going to have to imitate what that sounded like.”
I don’t know how you imitate the sound of “cool, calm, and coordinated.”
January 10, 2008 · Filed under DM Products
Since officially releasing the DM Albums™ plug-in for WordPress at the beginning of December, I have been amazed at the response from users. Perhaps most shocking is
that it appears that people actually are using the plug-in and had been looking for something similar. Between direct downloads from the main DutchMonkey Productions site and the downloads through WordPress directly, there have been almost 3000 downloads in just over a month.
I firmly believe that the best way to improve a product in a meaningful way is through feedback from the user community so I openly invite users to contact me with problems or suggestions. One of the most rewarding experiences of my career in software development has been working with the users who have contacted me. It’s only natural that most people contact me with problems (who in their right mind drops someone a note to say they’re happy?), but their eagerness to work together with me to solve their problems and to make suggestions has been wonderful.
DM Albums™ has been particularly well-received by photographers and artists because it seems to be one of the only blogging tools that provides an easy way to display high-quality images in-line with the post. Visiting their sites and seeing how they’ve chosen to use and configure the plug-in has been another of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in this field.
I don’t really have a point other than to say that the open-source community is great, and it’s no wonder that some of the best software available is open-source. The downside of these types of projects is that there seems to be little or no opportunity to actually make any money with this - not because I want to get rich, but because it is so rewarding that it would be great to do it full-time.
I feel like the Underpants Gnomes in South Park:
Step 1: Build DutchMonkey Products
Step 2: ???
Step 3: PROFIT!
January 4, 2008 · Filed under Entertainment, Technology
I have written on numerous occasions about the frustrations caused by problems with Microsoft’s software. Many times these problems are caused by bugs; 
other times by poorly considered choices in a system’s design. Some of you have acknowledged agreement; others have noted your disagreement. Most of you have passed out from boredom and moved on to the next blog.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been using Microsoft’s Virtual PC to run Windows XP on my Windows Vista laptop. Why would I do this? Well, Windows Vista doesn’t support their own development environment, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2005, very well so I was forced to find alternative means of development that didn’t require me rebuilding my machine. I’m not going to get into the details, but lets just say it’s been one struggle after the other, and the phrase “Stupid Microsoft” has escaped my lips more than once.
That said, I’m starting to suspect that I’m pushing my frustration with using computers to Microsoft - and not always fairly. For instance, it is unclear if Microsoft could be held responsible for the fact that a mouse is a very annoying means of interacting with a computer. On the other hand, they might be responsible for the decision to queue and buffer mouse clicks. (That particular hold-over from the command-line days is, in my opinion, one of the principle flaws in the design of computers with Graphical User Interfaces. But, everyone seems to do this, so you can hardly single Microsoft out for that choice.)
I dread “Trash Day” because I always find myself being self-conscious about the fact that most of our neighbors bring out one bin with one or two bottles of wine or beer for recycling, and we had to order a fourth bin to hold all our empty wine bottles. Plus our four are the only ones big enough for wheels. Most of them look like small milk crates. I take this opportunity to I remind you that wine’s good for you and makes you live forever. Plus, your liver is the only organ that can actually grow back.
Back to the point, yesterday was Trash Day, and as I was wheeling the recycling bin out to the front of the house, it caught a wheel on the curb and slipped out of my hand, not only making a mess but also hurting my hand.
My reaction was to mutter “Stupid Microsoft” under my breath. I haven’t carefully evaluated the situation yet, but I’m guessing that Microsoft may not have deserved that one.
January 2, 2008 · Filed under Cycling
“They” say hindsight is 20/20, but I tend to disagree. Hindsight is only as good as your vision is in the first place. In my case, I can see just well enough not to run into 
things without my glasses. Plus, “they” dangerously forget to point out that hindsight is only helpful if you are standing still; if you’re moving, you’re likely to bump into a tree or trip over a rock. In fact, I might argue that hindsight is more trouble than it’s worth. Onwards and upwards, I say, with a stubborn disregard for the past.
We won’t know until Time shuffles on a bit further exactly what impact the 2007 cycling season will have on cycling’s future, but I believe that after the dust settles, cycling will be recognized not only as one of the cleanest sports in the world, but as the sport that set the stage for how to battle drug use in professional sport. That’s not to say that we’re not up to the gills in drug use now, and that the governing bodies such as the UCI and WADA didn’t completely ball the whole thing up this year. I think the 2007 road cycling season will be seen as the year that the cycling community finally woke to the damage that drug use can cause in a sport.
I have written many times about how poorly the UCI, National Federations, and WADA have been conducting themselves in the fight against doping. The governing bodies as well as the teams have been complacent in allowing drug use throughout the peleton; by the worst measure, they have encouraged, demanded, and even organized it; by the best measure, they have turned a blind eye. Public opinion has slowly but steadily declined, and in response they have fought not to change their behavior, but to save their reputation and push the blame onto another source: the riders.
2006 will be remembered for the outbreak of Operation Puerto and the ejections of the major stars from the Tour de France. 2007 initially appeared to be cleaner. In years past, the top riders rode strongly at the front of races from start to finish. This year saw racing that seemed much more human, with top riders carefully burning their matches, making sure they had enough left for crucial moments. At the same time, more and more information came to light about how wide-spread drug use has been in cycling and - if you look for it - how unfairly the riders were treated by the UCI, National Cycling Federations, and their teams in order to save face in a culture steeped in drug use. I call that a “transition year”.
The season’s key developments, in no particular order:
- A bunch of guys won a bunch of great races.
- Floyd Landis was found guilty of doping during the 2006 Tour de France despite proving that the Châtenay-Malabry laboratory conducting the analysis of the samples deliberately broke protocol, destroyed data that produced negative results, and only kept data that produced positive results.
- Ivan Basso admitted to involvement in Operation Puerto.
- Bjarne Riis admitted to doping to win the 1997 Tour de France.
- Iban Mayo returned a positive dope control for testosterone during the Giro d’Italia. The positive result was overturned after Mayo pointed out that he has naturally high testosterone levels. (This medical condition has been filed with the UCI for several years.)
- Iban Mayo returned a positive A-Sample for EPO during the Tour de France. When the laboratory at Châtenay-Malabry (which tested the A-Sample) was not available to test the B-Sample, the UCI sent it to a lab in Belgium, which declared the B-Sample negative. The UCI then sent it to Australia to be tested there as well; that lab also found the B-Sample negative. Finally, the UCI sent the sample back to Châtenay-Malabry which found the B-Sample positive.
- After having fired Jan Ullrich in 2006 for alleged blood doping - and after participating in a subsequent fraud lawsuit against him - it has come to light that there was team-wide, organized blood-doping at T-Mobile before the 2006 Tour de France. As was the case with Pantani in 1999, it now appears that Ullrich was singled out in order to preserve the image of his team.
- The Yellow Jersey of the Tour de France was ejected from the race for having lied to the UCI about his whereabouts in the months before the Tour de France and missing anti-dope controls. The level of his team’s involvement is currently not known, but is being investigated.
- Alexandre Vinokourov suffers a catastrophic Tour de France, culminating in a positive test for a homologous blood transfusion. A few weeks later, his teammate Andrei Kashechkin returns a positive test for the same offense.
- Discovery Channel ends its sponsorship of Team Discovery Channel. Despite winning the Tour de France with Alberto Contador, the team failed to find a new sponsor and announced it would quit at the end of the 2007 season. The failure to find a sponsor is blamed on negative publicity due to doping in cycling.
- T-Mobile, one of the major sponsors over the last 12 years in cycling, abruptly ends it’s sponsorship due to the negative publicity of doping in cycling.
- Danilo Di Luca is suspended for 3 months for involvement with a sports doctor who allegedly is involved with the Oil for Drugs scandal in Italy; despite the fact that the doctor was certified by the Italian National Federation at the time Di Luca worked with him. There is also some question as to whether Di Luca saw him as a sports doctor or if he was his family doctor.
But there is a beacon of hope. Now that sponsors are leaving the sport, there is a chance that things will change and the UCI, teams, and riders will become serious about cleaning up. Team CSC has hired an anti-doping expert to manage a strict, internal anti-doping plan which involves over 500 additional blood and drug tests conducted by the team. After a successful 2007, other teams are adopting CSC’s plan.
Only time will tell if this is in fact the beginning of a new era, but I hope that what I smell in the air is change and not smoke.
