Happy New Year!
I finished the year with some big changes. After living for over twenty years at our last location, we’ve moved to a new part of our home state. There are several reasons, but mostly, we’re moving to be closer to my work. But there are challenges. Continue reading
Like many of you, I have been seeing a lot of coverage regarding the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. Although, I sympathize with the main goals of the movement (that the current corporate culture is not constructive toward building a better, stronger America), I have been put off by the inclusion of some groups that are essentially “professional protesters.”
Worse than the protests themselves, has been the police reaction to many of these protesters. In New York city there is corroborated video evidence of police reaction that was inappropriate in scale and force. VIDEO.
In the (formerly) great state of California, we have one of the premier public university systems in the nation. The ten campuses in the UC system consistently rank in the top forty in almost every listing with several of the campuses almost always in the top five.
In the last few years, California has hit a speed-bump economically (like most other states). That has resulted in cuts to public education which include, not only the UC, but the wonderful California State University system, local community colleges and the local school districts.
My children have had the privilege of attending UC Campuses. This is no mean feat, as admission to these campuses is reserved for those students who finish in the top 10% of students within the state. These campuses are research-oriented and employ many distinguished professors in a wide variety of areas of study. To see a Nobel laureate walking across campus is not uncommon.
In the last two years, there has been a 30% increase in tuition for attending these campuses. This is a drastic increase, out of line with the amount of services the state has had to cut elsewhere. To add insult to injury, these increases in tuition have come with increases in pay to chancellors, regents and campus presidents throughout the system.
This is not acceptable. Increases in tuition, should be met with decreases in compensation for the people administering the campus organization itself. But much like the people that OWS is trying to shame (to no avail), the chancellors, regents, and campus administrators seem to have their human sense of shame removed.
Yesterday, on the campus of UC Davis, a student protest was met with a disproportionate police reaction. VIDEO.
But enough is enough. A professor on campus, has sent an open letter to the Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi spelling out in no uncertain terms why she MUST resign. I agree wholeheartedly. My students have benefited from the time they spent on this campus. For a Chancellor to put students in harm’s way, for any reason, is not acceptable.
As an insult to the intelligence of the people who have seen the video of the incident, Katehi has sent out an email that is nothing short of outrageous. EMAIL
Am I advocating for the sort of out-of-control actions that we have seen elsewhere? Absolutely not. But I am advocating for the end of disproportionate response to what was (until then) a truly peaceful protest.
A while back I created a page that offered an example of how to parse JSON objects using the .NET JavaScriptSerializer class. It was a mess. It has now been updated. Continue reading
Since 2005, I’ve spent a lot of time living out of hotel rooms. The programming opportunities where I live are limited. So I’ve had to take jobs in areas near my home, but far enough away that I usually need to stay in hotels.
For most of that time I’ve used the Priceline “Name Your Own Price” system with good success. That system allows you to specify a “star level” that you want and a “price level” that you are willing to pay and through some black magic they (often) find a hotel matching your requested star level at your offered price.
But every so often, something goes wrong. Today, what went wrong is that the hotel that I “won” is not up-to-snuff with regards to its assigned star level. Continue reading
A while back, I put up a page on my first introduction to the Javascriptserializer class in the .NET library. Specifically, it dealt with how I used to to write a “hello world” application for Facebook. But in the last two weeks, that page has become the most popular page on my site. What happened? Continue reading
After the umpteenth request for an example of how to generate PDF using MySQL and iTextSharp, I have finally create a tiny sample project that shows how to do just that.
You can download it here: Complete MySQL and iTextSharp Project (C#).
On this site, I have a page that discusses some of the problems that I encountered while getting a website up and running on GoDaddy servers. Specifically, I had to re-compile some open-source projects to allow them to work in an environment with Partially Trusted Callers. I have added some step-by-step instructions on how to perform this task. Continue reading
Zatoichi (from the first movie)
This morning I was getting dressed and I happened to grab an old T-Shirt that I had made at CafePress. It features a picture of Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman and the phrase “What would Zatoichi do?” That got me reminiscing about about the Zatoichi series of movies which starred Shintaro Katsu back in the 60′s.
Mankind
Every Wednesday, our boss takes us out to lunch. Like all geeks do, we started talking about some pretty fanciful topics, including Time Travel.
Ignoring the laws of physics (and the bewildered stares of the young ladies at the next table), we developed complex strategies of how we would use time travel to peek into alternate futures. (Think “Quantum Leap” with a touch of “Doctor Who”). Anyway, that got me reminiscing about my own internet past. Continue reading
This is how I feel.
Like a lot of geeks, I wear eyeglasses. I’ve worn them since about my junior year in High School (good ole Piner High School). Also, like a lot of geeks my head is kind of big. And not just because I’m good looking and smart (let the laughing commence), but because there’s a lot of grey matter stored in the gourd on my shoulders.
Unfortunately, having a big head makes finding new eyeglasses frames difficult. More difficult than it should, in my opinion. Here’s what I’ve gone through in the last few weeks. Does this sound familiar? Continue reading
