Happy 4th of July!
GUEST POST on Tip of the Iceberg
My comments are broken, so go check out
the conversation that I've
started on Tim's blog.
The 12 people you'll encounter in the Yellowverse
Your won't be able to post comments to
this story. Sorry. There's something broken in my template, and I
don't have the latest version of Blogsphere available. I'll do my best
to sort out the problem in the next few days. But honestly, I'm not too
anxious about what I'll hear on this provocative but ultimately useless
post. 
As more people encounter our community here within the Lotus product line, I thought it might be valuable to provide some insight into the types of people you'll encounter. Forewarned is forearmed, and I'm sure we'd all like to be warned and armed against the following rogue's gallery of Lotus online culture.
As more people encounter our community here within the Lotus product line, I thought it might be valuable to provide some insight into the types of people you'll encounter. Forewarned is forearmed, and I'm sure we'd all like to be warned and armed against the following rogue's gallery of Lotus online culture.
A surprisingly honest offer
I get 419 scam emails all the time. If
you're on the internet, I bet you do too. I bothered to read one today
simply because it had better English than I normally see, and it claimed
to be from a British estate executor rather than the former assistant to
the Deputy Minister of Oil of Arundi Barundi.
So you can probably imagine my surprise when I read this sentence:
What refreshing honesty for an email scam!
So you can probably imagine my surprise when I read this sentence:
To facilitate the process of immediate transfer of this fund to your designated bank account, you need firstly signify your interest by contacting me via e-mail, and then I will appraise you with complete details as soon as I obtain your confidence.(italics mine)
What refreshing honesty for an email scam!
Struggling to figure something out
In all earnest, I do not want to make this
a he-said/she-said political debate. I'm simply struggling with one
thing in the 2074 pages of the Health
Care Reform Bill that I downloaded from senate.gov.
I read legal language like a software coder. Which, fortunately,
is also how judges tend to use it: as INPUTs.
"SEC. 5000B. IMPOSITION OF TAX ON ELECTIVE COSMETIC MEDICAL PROCEDURES.
(a) IN GENERAL.—There is hereby imposed on any cosmetic surgery and medical procedure a tax equal to 5 percent of the amount paid for such procedure (determined without regard to this section), whether paid by insurance or otherwise."
So, as a person that deals regularly in logic, I have to say that it should be "cosmetic surgery OR medical procedure" or better yet: "cosmetic surgery OR cosmetic medical procedure." Otherwise it only applies to surgeries that were part of a procedure. Of course, although the title says "Elective" nothing in the regulation language says elective, so if your face were sliced from ear to ear by a rapist, and you went to a plastic surgeon to get it fixed, you might have to pay a 5% excise tax. At least, if I'm reading the bill correctly.
Additionally, this provision that was signed on Mar 23 2010....
"shall apply to procedures performed on or after January 1, 2010."
I must be missing something. How is that not an ex post facto law? If between Jan 1 and Mar 23, you underwent a procedure that meets these criteria, you are subject to a 5 percent tax on them, correct?
Maybe I just don't understand the meaning of "shall" or "after" I'm open to corrections here, dear readers.
"SEC. 5000B. IMPOSITION OF TAX ON ELECTIVE COSMETIC MEDICAL PROCEDURES.
(a) IN GENERAL.—There is hereby imposed on any cosmetic surgery and medical procedure a tax equal to 5 percent of the amount paid for such procedure (determined without regard to this section), whether paid by insurance or otherwise."
So, as a person that deals regularly in logic, I have to say that it should be "cosmetic surgery OR medical procedure" or better yet: "cosmetic surgery OR cosmetic medical procedure." Otherwise it only applies to surgeries that were part of a procedure. Of course, although the title says "Elective" nothing in the regulation language says elective, so if your face were sliced from ear to ear by a rapist, and you went to a plastic surgeon to get it fixed, you might have to pay a 5% excise tax. At least, if I'm reading the bill correctly.
Additionally, this provision that was signed on Mar 23 2010....
"shall apply to procedures performed on or after January 1, 2010."
I must be missing something. How is that not an ex post facto law? If between Jan 1 and Mar 23, you underwent a procedure that meets these criteria, you are subject to a 5 percent tax on them, correct?
Maybe I just don't understand the meaning of "shall" or "after" I'm open to corrections here, dear readers.
synchronize(this);
If you're using Domino today, chances are
you're working extensively with Java code. Oh, you might not be writing
Java code yourself. But you use it when you go to work, when you go to
church, when you pay your taxes.... errr, sorry... when you open your Notes
mail, when you go to Designer, when you access an Xpages app.
Java is all around us. The very fabric of the Eclipse user experience is based on Java code. And whenever Java has to interact with information inside an NSF, there is but one way to do it: notes.jar. The lotus.domino package is the standard, both inside IBM and among the Lotus community, for accessing Notes/Domino data. It is our desert of the real.
But what if I were to tell you that this .jar is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth?
You'd probably say "Nathan, you're really going overboard with this Matrix crap. Get to the point."
The truth that Notes & Domino has a backdoor -- a SECRET API that is only used by a select few. And that it is this API that makes it possible to scale Xpages and keep Designer from processing at glacial speeds.
Click Permalink to continue...
On the impact of social media
Dear Internet,
Just because someone has a blog doesn't make them an expert. Just because someone has a Twitter account, doesn't make them a trendsetter. It means they signed up to a web site. Don't kid yourself into thinking you discovered the next big thing simply because it's on the interwebs. Expertise is determined by peer review and concrete demonstration of results, not diatribe.
This include yours truly.
It's the real world. Judge, and be prepared to be judged.
That is all.
-- Your gracious yet skeptic host
Just because someone has a blog doesn't make them an expert. Just because someone has a Twitter account, doesn't make them a trendsetter. It means they signed up to a web site. Don't kid yourself into thinking you discovered the next big thing simply because it's on the interwebs. Expertise is determined by peer review and concrete demonstration of results, not diatribe.
This include yours truly.
It's the real world. Judge, and be prepared to be judged.
That is all.
-- Your gracious yet skeptic host
The Dangers of Programming by Google
The
ever-erudite Rob Weir has a marvelous
article on a fundamentally flawed implementation of order randomness at
www.browserchoice.eu. It's a great review of primary concepts in
computing algorithms, and I'd strongly recommend it to readers of all levels
of coding experience. But to summarize the basic flaw, the original
web site developer used the following technique to randomize the list of
available browsers...
Go read Rob's article if you want to debate the merits of this algorithmic choice.
Unsurprisingly, the article also got picked up on Slashdot.org, where among the flurry of comments, we have this gem...
And so I checked both Google and Bing and wouldn't you know it, the author is absolutely correct. Javascriptkit.com offers ridiculously bad advice on how to get a shuffled array. And I find myself wondering how many unsuspecting developers have fallen victim to programming by SEO?
This should be a lesson for us all: if you want to search online for solutions to programming problems, make sure you use sites with social feedback and correct mechanisms such as Wikipedia or StackOverflow. And of course, there's no substitute for original research.
var aBrowserOrderTop5 = new Array(0,1,2,3,4);
aBrowserOrderTop5.sort(function RandomSort (a,b){return (0.5 - Math.random());})
Go read Rob's article if you want to debate the merits of this algorithmic choice.
Unsurprisingly, the article also got picked up on Slashdot.org, where among the flurry of comments, we have this gem...
A Google search on: javascript array sort gives exactly the bogus answer that Microsoft used in the top hit. Unfortunately for Microsoft, a bing search gives the same top hit.
And so I checked both Google and Bing and wouldn't you know it, the author is absolutely correct. Javascriptkit.com offers ridiculously bad advice on how to get a shuffled array. And I find myself wondering how many unsuspecting developers have fallen victim to programming by SEO?
This should be a lesson for us all: if you want to search online for solutions to programming problems, make sure you use sites with social feedback and correct mechanisms such as Wikipedia or StackOverflow. And of course, there's no substitute for original research.
OpenNTF Strategy Working Group call
I'm hosting an
open conference call this Thursday to discuss any and all strategy topics
for the 2010 year. If you're
reading this, you're invited!
Thursday, Feb 18, 2010, 10am-12pm ET
GoToMeeting Invitation - OpenNTF.org Strategy Working Group 2010 Open Planning Discussion
1. Please join my meeting.
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/904523969
2. Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) - a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone.
Austria: +43 (0) 7 20881404
Belgium: +32 (0) 42 68 0697
Switzerland: +41 (0) 435 0167 10
Germany: +49 (0) 892 2061 166
Spain: +34 931816670
France: +33 (0) 182 880 460
United Kingdom: +44 (0) 203 355 7648
Ireland: +353 (0) 14 845 980
Italy: +39 0247921240
Netherlands: +31 (0) 208 080 383
United States: +1 516 453 0013
Access Code: 904-523-969
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting
Meeting ID: 904-523-969
Feel free to suggest topics of conversation.
Thursday, Feb 18, 2010, 10am-12pm ET
GoToMeeting Invitation - OpenNTF.org Strategy Working Group 2010 Open Planning Discussion
1. Please join my meeting.
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/join/904523969
2. Use your microphone and speakers (VoIP) - a headset is recommended. Or, call in using your telephone.
Austria: +43 (0) 7 20881404
Belgium: +32 (0) 42 68 0697
Switzerland: +41 (0) 435 0167 10
Germany: +49 (0) 892 2061 166
Spain: +34 931816670
France: +33 (0) 182 880 460
United Kingdom: +44 (0) 203 355 7648
Ireland: +353 (0) 14 845 980
Italy: +39 0247921240
Netherlands: +31 (0) 208 080 383
United States: +1 516 453 0013
Access Code: 904-523-969
Audio PIN: Shown after joining the meeting
Meeting ID: 904-523-969
Feel free to suggest topics of conversation.
Dear Domino Spammer
I know I have a visible email address.
I'm sure I've posted it on twitter, developerWorks, edbrill.com,
eview.com, my own blog, and probably about a zillion other places. So
sure, it can be harvested. Nevertheless this is unacceptable.
Note to Heather Schein: I'm a co-founder and Steering Committee member of OpenNTF.org. I've been published in The View. I'm a Design Partner on half of Lotus' product portfolio. I've been blogging for over 5 years. I've done podcasts, interviews, viral videos, presented at Lotusphere, carried press credentials, and otherwise done just about everything you can imagine with Domino short of being a paid member of the IBM engineering team. As I write this, I can't even remember the number of things I've done in the yellowverse that ultimately mean that I don't READ news about Domino; I WRITE it.
And you know why I'm absolutely sure that your site is as useful to me as a 3-assed monkey?
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Disclaimer
Welcome to Escape Velocity!
Opinions expressed here by Nathan T. Freeman are not necessarily those of his employer. However, there's a decent chance they are, so check with them if you really want to know.
But really... do you need that kind of validation? Are the opinions expressed here in doubt?
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