4D Solutions

4D Solutions
A Pioneer in Open Source

Refugee Camps?

This seems like one of those times when we need emergency short term FEMA cities (camps really), with free rides to the new digs, efficient intake -- on sites high and dry and pre-fitted with portable infrastructure (food and water).

Get back on your feet, start a new life elsewhere.

We wonder about Tara's playmate Alana and her family, of Biloxi. They moved away from the house across the street to be closer to relatives, and were enjoying their new life. They came back for a visit around the same time I got back from my trip to Sweden. How has the storm changed their circumstances, near and long term? We pray for their well being, and that of their neighbors.

FEMA must have such plans in inventory. We've been in a war after all. Corporations will want to get their logos on record as well, to earn the good will of disaster victims everywhere (tomorrow's retail shoppers and investment bankers -- better they should feel gratitude than the sting of abandonment in a time of need).

Followup, Sept 1

I've since learned my info re Alana's family was incorrect: they were closer to New Orleans on the Louisiana side of the border. Our prayers reach out to you, wherever you are. And we continue monitoring Biloxi, looking for signs of your good works, amen.

Shark Tale (movie review)

I watched this again last night -- one of the few I've purchased for the purpose of sampling, as parts or as a whole, any time. Plus I like the special features.

Capturing the likes of Robert de Niro and Martin Scorsese, as fish, is a major coup, and I salute these gentlemen for agreeing to be in a film for children, that's so kind to adults and their dark worlds, in this case that of an undersea urbia and a world of mafioso types. All the characterizations are brilliant, right down to the hermit crab, who cracks me up every time ("you're blowing it man!").

A Couple of Skits

Skit One:

Karl Rove hosts SNL. Skit-within-a-skit: liberal Oregon family in funky station wagon or bus, all the right bumper stickers, pulls over for disgusting junk food, to find Karl Rove serving at the 2nd window ("ketchup?"). The family freaks, barrels down the freeway, pulls over for gas. It's Karl at the pump.

Skit Two:

The day Rush Limbaugh is out sick and filling in we have Barney the purple dinosaur, spewing love for everyone.

Regarding Today's Headlines

I got home in time to watch most of Ted Koppel's Nightline about Peter Jennings, a long haul control room anchor from Canada who recently died from cigarette smoking.

Everyone remarked on how cool-headed he was on the air, and on his ravenous appetite for omnitriangulated information (only a small percentage of which made it to the nightly news on ABC, given ABC offered no 24/7 televised news channel).

Editorial re today's news:

Iranian nuke facilities take a step in defiance of those who've already weaponized their uranium stockpiles.

Nonproliferation should mean it's illegal for any facility, anywhere in the world, to produce new weapons-grade fissionable materials. Any facility that does so, including in North America, should get its satellite picture in the paper for committing crimes against humanity.

Stockpiling such materials is likewise a crime, unless the intent is to secure and eventually destroy them, or render them inaccessible (plans and timeline on file with the IAEA).

Any nation allowing such weaponry to proliferate within its own borders is of course a rogue nation harboring terrorists, by definition -- often a sign that the central government is extremely weak and without a serious national security policy (like in Afghanistan).

Histories currently in production will tell the story from this angle: the Iranian government is not alone in being inept against terrorism. We'll have quite the rogues gallery of nefarious nuke heads and incompetent politicians.

USA OS PolicyToons: [1] [2]

RubyToons

I'm imagining some kind of language game with syntax highlighting, symbols in motion, demonstrating the logic of a high level language: Ruby for example.

Just stepping through with a debugger is already good enough for geek television. A strong debugger even crosses language barriers, e.g. will go into the C# if that's where the problem or break point is, even if the calling code were in IronPython.

Ruby on Rails is a well designed framework for frameworks, targeted at facing a public through the web (http). Since a lot of rails is written in Ruby, the developer's comprehension of the stack will carry her quite deeply into things.

Fond memory (they're developing already): Jim Huginin, beginning his presentation with this funny remark: " the wireless microphone doesn't appear to be working, so if I trip over this cord, please all laugh loudly to help me cover my embarrassment."