A Little Nostalgia - And What the Hell Happened to Performance?

Right now I am sitting at a computer with 16GB of RAM, 500GB of SSD main storage and a 300GB 7000 RPM hard drive for data, all being controlled by an Intel Core i3-3240 CPU running Windows 7 Ultimate.  Not a blazing gaming machine but I can comfortably work all day and make a decent living.

Well...

As long as no update is processing or it doesn't attempt to digest a bad update or some mysterious internal process isn't sucking up resources like a sump pump in flood season.

Then, using this piece of hardware is not only a large pain in the ass, but sometimes causes days of poking and prodding to back-out an update that went wonky.

First I had the little Timex Sinclair ZX-81.  Great little machine with it's 2.25 MHz Z-80 processor and 32KB Ram.  Yes...  Kilo-Byte.  The OS was burnt onto ROM or EEPROM, so before the TV caught it's video sync, the thing was booted up.

On the down side, there were two computer languages (that I knew about anyway), a crappy version of BASIC and Z-80 assembler (that I never really got to work well).  OK...  This was not a shining piece of computer hardware, nor a fine example of performance...  but it did boot fast!

Then, my third machine...  A Commodore 128 - actually a Commodore C64 and Z-80 driven CP/M machine in one box.  Connect a hard drive and a modem and you could surf the world.  Oh, sure, the web was dominated by ARCHIE and GOPHER and FTP and simple E-Mail, but one could accomplish what one needed; and quickly as well.  I distinctly remember downloading a C compiler for CP/M and writing an IBM-370 assembler on that thing.

Maybe I am getting old, but I would REALLY rather have something that just worked than something glittery and new and expensive that is amazingly fast, so long as the CPU is clicking off NOPs.

A Better Weather Channel?

Being a weather geek from the time I saw my first tornado way back in the early 1970's, naturally, the Weather Channel has never been far from wherever I happened to be at any moment.  While in college back in the mid 1980's the Weather Channel was my background study noise.  It was also my pre-spotter alert tool.  Any time they predicted bad weather, I was certain to ensure my car was gassed up and my ham radios charged and ready.

Unfortunately over time, the folks at the Weather Channel have moved away from the "all weather all the time" concept that I dearly loved, to a "weather-tainment" paradigm.  Don't get me wrong; I do not 'hate' this new concept.  I do like watching Prospectors and still don't mind experiencing some of the slicked-up weather tech.  It's all the other programs they have that just irritate me.

The other day my wife introduced me to a new channel on Dish called WeatherNation.   WOW!  No odd programs that only have a tentative relationship to weather.  Definitely a more "all the weather all the time" programming concept.  They may have won a convert here; I like it.

Odd-Sounding Academic Paper Title

YA... ya... ya... It's been a while since least posting. Life can be extremely busy out here.

Anyways, here is something that caught my eye this morning. "Can bloogle resonators enhance representation of time, space and culture through the Person-Environment-Occupation Model" The paper's abstract can be found on Academia.edu

Not sure if this is a spoof or not.  Using those irritatingly enjoyable 'bloogle' noisemakers in an academic paper to possibly enhance the representation of "...time, space and culture..." just seems a bit off to this old geek.

Well, unless there's a time travel theory in there somewhere.  Then that would be COOL!

Making Glade run on Precise Puppy

Being a Crazy Old Programmer, there are times when Crazy Old Programmer Thoughts create little fires in far-flung reaches of my brain.  About a year ago I started collecting night sky images with the thought I would write a C# program to watch for odd things up in the heavens.

Specifically I wanted to look for meteorite trails and bolides.  It was not a success but not a failure.  The proof-of-concept was to make one second exposures and save 24 hours of these images.  Exposure time on day sky images would be adjusted accordingly.  That would yield about 86400 files for each 24 hour period.

Windows choked horribly.  Copying that many files from one directory to another required more than an hour of the computer's time.  Processing the images were slow, likely due to the file system and that C# doesn't compile to the hardware, rather to an intermediate CLI.

Anyway, I started looking and thought I would experiment with minimal Linux distributions.  First one up is Precise Puppy.  Install on my little HP mini was fairly painless and overall the OS is extremely responsive for such minimal hardware.

Next step is getting the DEVX package installed and running. 

Slow it Down, Son!

I have been trying to tell programmers to 'just slow it down and think a bit' for years.

Whether you’re knitting or programming, working faster will only slow you down. Or at least that’s what Jeffrey Ventrella argues. In “The Case for Slow Programming“, the tech author makes the claim that software developers need to slow down if they want quicker results.

Nice article.  Take a look at it here.

Difficult Holidays - Yet Another Lesson on Enjoying the Simple Things in Life

Some lessons in simplicity come as gently as a Sparrow's feather landing on your arm.  Others are more difficult to accept.

We divorced back in 2007.  She liked the complex life, full of intrigue and lies and deceit and conspiracy.   It's not that she was happy with this, she never seemed happy, wanting things to be increasingly more complex.  She would spend days analyzing events and gossip to arrive at conclusions that seemed outrageous to a simple fellow like myself.

Aside from an occasional text, we had no communications, likely for the better as we were certainly not compatible.  She may have begun learning the pleasure that comes with simplicity a little too late.

A few days before Christmas she passed in her sleep, after a day of making cookies with a neighbor.

So, please take some time to enjoy the simplicity in your life.  So often our lives become twisted and complex.  That is not where peace thrives.  Find that peace and enjoy it.

KIFS - A New Software Development Paradigm

KIFS is a new software development paradigm or philosophy that emphasizes simplicity above all other factors.
KIFS is an acronym for Keep It Freakishly Simple.

Introduction
KIFS is not enumerable or objective.  It is sensitive to the context with which it is to be applied.  It is similar to the KISS philosophy but more specific. The goal of any software project developed using KIFS is simplicity in all aspects without affecting intended functionality.

KIFS is not exclusionary.  It may be used within the user interface where something large, overbearing and wasteful like an MVC design pattern can be used for other aspects of a particular project.  KIFS is there to help when needed.

Some advantages of KIFS are...