tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-57987162009-06-30T13:28:12.327-05:00Various ramblings from Peter Clark about life, coding, parenthood, Java, grad school, and enjoying my mac book airPeter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.comBlogger206125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-24553390224611573402009-06-03T18:08:00.005-05:002009-06-03T18:15:31.805-05:00

I've been at JavaOne 2009 for the past few days. Lots and lots of great information, and learning a lot. Many of the talks I've been attending have been about alternate languages that run on the JVM - JRuby, Scala, Groovy, jython. Many of these languages solve problems that are difficult to solve given the constraints of the Java language, or at least are difficult to solve elegantly. Some of the

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-9755834608716618242009-06-01T12:59:00.002-05:002009-06-01T13:03:16.357-05:00

I'm at JavaOne in San Francisco. I'll occasionally post updates to Twitter. Http://www.twitter.com/pclark

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-49263287599534330262009-05-15T14:55:00.002-05:002009-05-15T15:29:48.183-05:00

Intel SpeedStep is a technology that allows the processor to be underclocked when it's not busy. AMD has a similar concept called cool'n'quiet. The idea is that if the processor is slowed, it'll run cooler and use less power. If it's emitting less heat, then the building needs less air conditioning, and everyone is happy.We've got a bunch of Dell OptiPlex 745, 755, and 760 computers at work.

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-53774889900190339182009-05-13T15:25:00.004-05:002009-05-13T15:26:33.796-05:00

A couple of days ago, Bea was annoyed that Laurel wasn't respecting her request for Laurel to keep her hands to herself. Bea complained to her mom "sometimes I think Laurel doesn't know what listening means".

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-11749337729159798842009-04-08T16:15:00.002-05:002009-04-08T16:21:56.096-05:00

I love Mac OS/X Mail.app. The latest bit of love is this - the message list will tell you how many attachments there are in a message - for instance, "3 items".Unless there are too many for it to count quickly. Then, it just displays "lots":

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-48648280213175844472009-04-05T19:03:00.002-05:002009-04-05T19:05:04.590-05:00

Thought for the day - when writing checkin comments, consider that your audience might be your boss, reviewing your past checkins, while said boss is writing your annual performance review.

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-42161236202635054822009-03-12T22:00:00.004-05:002009-03-12T22:06:05.588-05:00

Apple has recently released an update for the Airport Extreme and the Time Capsule. I've got a 500gb time capsule, and for backing up over my wired ethernet network, it's great. Fast, efficient, and just what you'd want. It's slower than backing up to a firewire-800 drive, but my macbook air doesn't have a port for that.However, backing up over the wifi network was painfully slow. In fact, it was

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-52552163950039880402009-03-10T11:48:00.001-05:002009-03-10T11:51:09.734-05:00

Great picture of a sandstorm coming into Riyadh. Wouldn't it be cool if Minnesota blizzards worked like that?

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-3493438537975629042009-02-24T11:58:00.000-06:002009-02-24T11:59:24.872-06:00

Oh boy - this is beautiful.

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-81876236429256166922009-02-15T15:41:00.000-06:002009-02-15T15:42:00.714-06:00

And the answer is, None. None more black.

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-19870056024760663342009-02-13T20:30:00.003-06:002009-02-13T20:43:41.573-06:00

Last week was the Maskenball fundraiser for the Twin Cities German Immersion School. My wife worked long and hard on it, and I'm glad to have her back. It was a splendid party. I'm not much of one for big events like this - as a friend recently commented in his "25 random things about me" response, "In a group of more than 5 people, I'll probably feel like the odd man out". True for me too.

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-86833884484551853302009-01-04T16:44:00.004-06:002009-01-04T16:59:01.659-06:00

I just finished up building a new intel-based box from parts. This is the first time I've tried to assemble my own, rather than buying a whole one. However, my brother has made several machines out of Shuttle cases, and they seem to work well. All the parts came from newegg - here's what I got:Shuttle SP45H7 barebones caseIntel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0ghz processor, 65 watts4 Gb Corsair DDR2 800

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-74745439706442848142008-12-29T22:21:00.001-06:002008-12-29T22:23:09.577-06:00

Wonderful posting, Linked to by Bruce Schneier. Wow.

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-73972626695154407772008-11-11T11:53:00.002-06:002008-11-11T11:57:38.892-06:00

I'm in Groß-Gerau, a bit southwest of Frankfurt. I recently finished up a workshop at Schloss Dagstuhl about the Data Documentation Initiative. Rather interesting (if you're in my line of work...).I'm now visiting friends, and I head home tomorrow. Somewhat bittersweet - I've had a great trip and I've quite enjoyed visiting people I haven't seen in months or years, but I also miss my wife and

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-53173618671047775052008-10-23T14:07:00.004-05:002008-10-23T14:16:53.930-05:00

Internet Explorer painA consulting client of mine has a website with some security requirements that mandate the use of encrypted communications. The site had been running on Tomcat 4 on a Win2K server machine, with no particular tuning of how tomcat dealt with crypto. We kinda just dropped in the server-side cert and ran with it, back in 2003 or so.We recently ran a nessus scan on the machine,

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-40038084019613910302008-09-19T21:03:00.003-05:002008-09-19T21:10:20.325-05:00

It's been ages since I've posted, so this is maybe not the deepest thing I've put up here.I had a great 5-mile run today, despite getting rained on at the beginning. I did 5-mile runs on monday and tuesday too. Thursday I got stuck cleaning up a user's computer (he managed to find a new virus that Symantec had only heard about as of thursday AM), and left work late, so I had to bike rather than

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-35782907440766959112008-07-29T11:05:00.002-05:002008-07-29T11:15:18.621-05:00

CodeWeavers, a generally cool company to begin with, is hosting a "great american lame duck presidential challenge". If Bush is able to meet clear, specific, and reasonable goals, CodeWeavers will give away their software for 24 hours - fully functional, fully supported, no charge. One copy per customer.I hope they're able to give away a lot.

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-10749970402683695612008-07-21T10:42:00.003-05:002008-07-21T10:49:25.793-05:00

James and I went up to the boat this past weekend, to do a bunch of projects with my dad. Laurel and Ella were at my folks, attending a nature camp at Hartley Nature Center in Duluth. On Saturday, we went for a sail. We had really nice winds at the start, but then a thick fog came in from the lake. Laurel and Ella were a bit cold, and Laurel provided a demonstration of why kids and expensive

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-11454347516778375502008-06-29T11:17:00.002-05:002008-06-29T11:17:48.911-05:00

Ironically, I just started re-playing Diablo II with a paladin - a character class I had never played when the game was relatively new. Turns out it screams on modern hardware. ;-)

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-43706074303286979722008-06-16T09:05:00.004-05:002008-06-16T09:23:57.579-05:00

I've been re-reading The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks (20th anniversary edition), in particular the "The Mythical Man-Month after 20 years" chapter. I'm amazed that he basically presages large parts of The Agile Manifesto - which was written down in 2001 and was viewed by some as radical. The manifesto states, in short:Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-29526596450750317362008-06-06T12:23:00.002-05:002008-06-06T12:26:08.039-05:00

I've never seen this before, and it's a little scary. Amazon.com is down. This was taken on 6/6/08, at 12:20 PM central time.

Peter Clarkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07780127268335856418noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-21873687395340301192008-05-23T11:59:00.001-05:002008-05-23T12:00:21.276-05:00

Rush played in St. Paul on 5/22/08. I went to see the show with Len and James. Here's the set list:LimelightDigital ManGhost of a ChanceMissionMain monkey businessLarger BowlRed BarchettaTreesSpinning WheelsDreamline"What's that smell?"Far CryWorkin' them AngelsArmor and SwordSpindriftWay the wind blowsSubdivisionsNatural ScienceWitch HuntMalignant NarcissismDrum SoloHope (guitar solo)Spirit of

Pete Clarknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-58956590649055515692008-05-05T16:03:00.003-05:002008-05-05T16:12:28.823-05:00

SPSS 16 EVAL is EVIL.I've been using SPSS 16 for Mac OS/X for a quantitative analysis class. I had been using a licensed copy on my mac book pro, and recently installed the eval version on my mac pro - more and faster CPU cores, more and faster memory, more and faster disk; seemed like a good idea to run it where it'd go faster, but I didn't want to pay for two licenses.Well, the 14 day eval

Pete Clarknoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-46646410022450904172008-04-02T08:27:00.003-05:002008-04-02T08:37:12.367-05:00

So, yesterday (April fools day, no less), Microsoft held their Windows Server 2008 product launch event in Minneapolis. I got there late, since I had class, and got the software bundle they were handing out. These events usually include free copies of the products being launched - in this case, Win Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008. Much to my surprise, there was also a copy of

Pete Clarknoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5798716.post-68497180454238302752008-03-26T23:40:00.003-05:002008-03-26T23:48:32.513-05:00

Don't get me wrong - I love winter. I love snow. I love skiing. Earlier this year, Laurel and I went skiing and she progressed from being scared of the "magic carpet" conveyer belt to riding on the chairlift and bombing the hills.But it's nearly april, and there's still snow on the ground. I want to go running. I want to bike to work. I want the snow to melt and have spring.In other news, Bea and

Pete Clarknoreply@blogger.com0