The Slamlander

The US Dollar vs.

• Euro (€) = 1.270
• UK pound (£) = 1.537
• Swiss Franc (CHF) = .990

From the Swiss Franc perspective …

• € = 1.283
• £ = 1.553
• $ = 1.010

Fun and games, eh?

Whew!

After getting Condor stable and testing to make sure that JBOSS runs on it okay, I started on the rest of the project.

There are four major components to a J2EE Development laboratory;

1. A database server (MySQL)
2. A Java Application server (JBOSS)
3. A version control system (Subversion)
4. A development environment (Eclipse).

I am doing all of these under Win2Kserver.

Database server

I actually have four instances of MySQL running, one of which is my production RDBMS that supports my various websites. The newest of these is version 5.0.51b. They have been working fine and stable no matter what sort of PHP scripted hell I put them through.

Java Application server

As I said earlier, I have JBOSS running on a dedicated machine. It comes up as v5.0.0.CR2 with Java runtime version 1.6.0_21-b07. I tried JBOSS v6.x but I had too many flavors of ‘FAIL’ there. JBOSS 5 with Java 6 seems to be the current sweet-spot. I may look into Glassfish later.

Version Control

Subversion is something that I have been meaning to do for some time now. I keep getting close and then backing away. It’s probably the tinker-factor. Well, I now have v1.4.8 on my RAID box and a dedicated repository, under RAID1.

Eclipse IDE

Comparatively, the other three components were easy. Every time that I have gone to Eclipse before I got buried in oodles of tinker-factor. Typical Open Source crap. Two years ago, I discovered Genuitec’s MyEclipse and have had a PRO license ever since. It is now at version 8.6. At $60 per year, it is a damned sight cheaper than the MS equivalent. What’s more, it now works without massive tinkering and it’s not just for Java. I can build for;

1. PHP (full IDE and debugger)
2. Perl (Ibid)
3. C/C++ (Ibid)
4. Javascript (Amazing that this Netscape artifact is still around)
5. AJAX applications with remote debugging

What Genuitec does is to take the base Eclipse IDE, figure out what’s missing and add in the missing pieces with proprietary code. They also sort through all the eclipse modules and plugins to give the best mix of what works together and how it should be configured. In short, they find the best working sweet-spot and remove almost all of the tinker-factor while doing it. Their configuration dashboard makes adding in modules and components almost a joy, rather than an endless source of frustration. That’s the way that software tools should work. If something isn’t going to work, they tell you before it’s installed.

In any case, I have Subversion hooked to the Subversive module and the three DBMS servers hooked into the Database Explorer. Now I am installing the MinGW GNU tool chain for C and C++, after that I have to test Perl, PHP, and Javascript configurations. There is even a Prolog module for it

Off to lunch for now, ciao

…

Ignorance is never out of style.  It was in fashion yesterday, it is the rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow.
                — Franklin K. Dane

Truer words were never said or written.

Dr Fernando Galembeck told the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston that the technique exploited a little-known atmospheric effect.

The article goes on to say;

Dr Galembeck and his colleagues isolated various metals and pairs of metals separated by a non-conducting separator – a capacitor, in effect – and allowed nitrogen gas with varying amounts of water vapor to pass over them.

This is a prime facae Leyden Jar. It was invented independently by German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist on 11 October 1744 and by Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek of Leiden (Leyden) in 1745–1746¹ . What isn’t well discussed was the fact that a Leyden jar would accumulate a charge over time. In fact. Ben Franklin recommended that unused jars be stored disassembled for safety reasons precisely because of this effect.

“What we think is happening is he’s pumping the water vapor across his capacitor and during the pumping mechanism, tribocharging the water vapor.” – Prof.Hywel Morgan of the University of Southampton

Well, that’s one theory but in the final analysis, this is nothing more than standard tricks of the Leyden jar and while a controversial theory, the design of the Arc of the Covenant looks very much like a Leyden Jar but with a dielectric of wood² . It too accumulated a charge over time and once discharged, needed time to build a charge up again. Those ancient Yahwhists, of course, attributed this to the work of God. They had no science in those days.

The point is that someone, over three thousand years ago, already knew how to build a Leyden Jar, even if by accident. What Dr Galembeck “discovered” is far from a new discovery, however he may have a more precise explanation of the self-charging effect³ .

When I wrote about retirement of the old Condor, things have been in flux around here. That project has petered out a bit. I did get that new ATX case and have built the new box last February. However, things have stalled due to the lack of reliable ISO downloads of Linux. Then I got back to writing and the whole project sat in the rack for a few months.

One thing followed another and last month I received a few interesting calls from agents looking for some J2EE expertise. Unfortunately, they were all for work out of country (Belgium, UK, Austria). It did, however, indicate the resurgence of demand for programming expertise and that would eventually translate into increased demand here in Geneva, Switzerland, or not. At least, I hope it will. At least, I need to go back and scrape some rust off the old skill-set.

I dug out that new-old lump and installed Windows 200 Server on it. Then the latest Java 6 SDK and layered a v5 JBOSS¹ over that. Now I am installing Subversion (SVN) on my sole RAID array. That, along with the current Eclipse should give me the full development environment that I need and is probably really close to what real clients are probably running. Well, except for the down-rev and EOL server OS² .

I hope that this works out, a decent contract would make the bank a little happier. I am only 8.5 years from mandatory retirement, at 65.  

A week worth of ‘busy’ and I have the new box up. Now to layer the next set of code into it.

James Roden, of Requiem, posted this link a few days ago. It is an article by Saul Friedman on the general ignorance of the American proletariat.

But it’s the dangerous ignorance of the mobs that worry me most. One mob, for example confronted, threatened and yelled epithets at Rep. John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, the longest-serving member of Congress. How dare they?

I doubt if they knew that Dingell, a life-long member of the NRA, has also been a champion of the auto industry. His father was a great New Dealer who gave us the National Labor Relations Act. And Dingell, who took his father’s seat, has been trying for years to win universal health insurance. But what does a mob know? Especially when the press doesn’t itself know, or bothers to confront the mob with the truth.

And that is a real issue, ignorant reporting. Rather, reporters that are as ignorant, if not more so, than their audience. He goes on to say,

As a result, the lies take hold. Imagine. The right-wing talkers call Obama a fascist, when they are encouraging the brown shirts of today. I doubt if any of these goons in the mobs even know what fascism, socialism or even Nazism is. I doubt if they know who fought in World War II.

In short, a population that is indeed that ignorant is likely to fall for any sort of bullshit demagoguery that gets their attention.

Time Goes By is an interesting and refreshing read. It deals with some serious issues without trying to write down to the reader. I think that many of my friends would find it interesting.

Whatever the stock is worth, it won’t be worth this much in the morning.

The BBC just posted this little tidbit without realizing what this says.

The UK operation of Zurich Insurance has been fined £2.27m by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for losing personal details of 46,000¹ customers.

I don’t think that the UK government realizes it either.

The data on policyholders, including in some cases bank account and credit card information, went missing in August 2008.

However, Zurich did not become aware of the loss until a year later, when it then began notifying customers.

On the face of it, this is jaw-dropping news and it gets even better;

Experts said the size of the fine sends a signal that the authorities will crack down hard on data loss.

Note that they were only concerned about the data getting into the wrong hands. No one seeks to assure the 46,000 Zurich Financial Services Group² customers that the information isn’t, in fact, lost and has to be recreated.

An insurance based financial company lives and dies on its customer data. Not only can it not track operational financial issues (this represents millions of dollars of revenue) but it cannot possibly service those accounts without that data. While that data is lost, those accounts are effectively not covered nor could they be covered and that is a violation of the contracts that those accounts were opened under. That means 46,000 cases of potential contract breach.

From a business stand point, the fact that it took them over a year to even discover the loss is mind-boggling. If I had an account at Zurich, I would not now be considering closing it. I would have instructed my insurance broker to close it hours ago. I would have followed it up by instructing my stock broker to dump all my stock in the company, if any. Anyone that sloppy about their business is normally not expected to remain in that business for much longer.

Just to keep things in perspective, those 46,000 customers at $5,000 per year³ , represent over 230 million or damned nearly a quarter BILLION dollars per year of contractual liability. That is;

• Money that isn’t counted on the ledgers as either income or expense
• Unearned contract revenue that cannot possibly be serviced.
• Missed opportunity for leveraging.
• Customers that were not covered and could not possibly be covered during the data outage.

Granted, they might have only lost the backup data but given the fact that they took a year to even notice the loss, I am less than sanguine about them having proper backups. Had I fund on deposit with them, it would now be withdrawn. Had I issuances of their shares, they would now be sold. And had I any of their bonds, they would now be liquidated.

Any company, in that business, that needs regulation to protect their core data does not deserve to remain in that business.

While traipsing through my little universe on the internet, I ran across a public mugging by El Santo¹, of The Webcomic Overlook. The site is Xyliatales by Barb Jacobs and it happened last March. Unfortunately, Barb has been in recovery and Xyliatales has been on hiatus ever since. The author was devastated by the review and it’s a damned shame that it happened.

Public reviews are there solely for the aggrandizement of the reviewer, period, paragraph, end of story! Proper reviews are made in private and without the ego-tripping.

Any story can be panned, thereby making the reviewer look good. It places the reviewer in a pseudo-superior position, above the author. The thing is that, none of the public reviewers have or are able to create their own content. Rather, the only content that they can create are the scathing reviews and their audience actually grades them on how badly they can tear up a creative effort. It’s sick, I know.

I have both seen and experienced this time and again. These public reviewers specialize in the scathing review, that’s how they sell column-inches, eyeballs, whatever. It is what keeps them in business, their business model. For that reason, their opinion means NOTHING! The first thing a Hollywood agent will tell a client is to IGNORE THE CRITICS and with good reason! More than one promising talent has been shortcut by scathing reviews², undeserved scathing reviews that only benefit the reviewer and ingratiates them to their audience, at the complete expense of the target. As I said, a public mugging.

The only reviews that you should ever read are those that you’ve asked for from trusted people. Those whom you respect, IN PRIVATE! That is the only way that you can be assured of an honest and competent  review. These gratuitous public reviews serve no other purpose than to feed the reviewer’s ego and, not incidentally, their pocket.

It’s on the BBC.

No coal and no oil of it’s own. Greenpeace are spouting the usual gibberish about alternative energy sources. The lie, as usual. We need high density energy and not low density sources that will remove prime agricultural land from production or turn our food into energy.

This may return sanity to politics?

A US federal judge has overturned California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage.

Somehow, I don’t think so. However, it is a step in the right direction. Yes, marriage has always been under secular authority. It forms the basis for taxing households. The problem has always been that ecclesiastical authority has been trying to usurp this authority for millennia and their propaganda machine has always been the best.

Randy Thomasson, of the socially conservative group SaveCalifornia.com, described it as a “terrible blow” to voter rights.

“Judge Walker has ignored the written words of the constitution, which he swore to support and defend and be impartially faithful to, and has instead imposed his own homosexual agenda upon the voters, the parents and the children of California,” he told the AFP news agency.

Actually, it isn’t. One of the reasons that the Religious Right have always referred to the US west coast as the Left Coast is that we’ve always been secular, ignoring most religious decrees, beginning with those of the Catholic Church and making no special concessions for the Puritan right either. The California Constitution reflects that and seeks to protect the individual from the misguided will of the majority, like Proposition 8. There are certain inalienable rights, like that of free association¹ , that are protected, even from majority tyranny² .

The government has the right to count and tax households but it has no right to determine the composition of those households. The household of freely consenting adults and their children are a household, regardless of their count or gender³ .

Some day, we will be able to finally eradicate religion from the government. *sigh* One can only hope.