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An epic fail in webmastering

tinkertim — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 02:20:46 +0000

This post is going to be riddled with fail, most of it mine. The short version is, my site has been down for over two weeks and it took me a week and a half to even notice it. That, of course describes fail number one and fail number two, but there’s plenty more fail [...]

Overhaul in progress

tinkertim — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 05:47:43 +0000

The latest WordPress / Plugin update was a bit more than my old, extremely hacked Performancing theme (from 2006) could handle. The resulting mess was so unbearable that I felt compelled to switch to the new stock theme. I’ve been putting off a complete overhaul of this site for far too long. As it happens, [...]

Dispelling Common Cloud Myths

tinkertim — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:01:25 +0000

Is there someone in your office that complains constantly yet offers no useful suggestions on how to fix the problem at hand? Do you wonder if some people just thrive on complaining and tickling the skeptic bone in others? Are you sick of the abundance of conflicting and often confusing information? When it comes to [...]

The Difference Between Temperament And Wisdom

tinkertim — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 15:11:15 +0000

This is a quickie Temperament: Knowing that you lack experience to come up with a solution to a given problem. Wisdom: Asking others for help. Knowing that you don’t know is not wisdom. Thinking that you couldn’t possibly know is stupidity. I said it would be quick

We Need More Scary Movies

tinkertim — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 16:44:41 +0000

Do you like scary, I mean really really scary movies? I do, and Hollywood is seriously letting me down. Compare anything that you saw in the last five years with The Shining and you’ll see what I’m talking about. If Hollywood wants nerds and geeks to flock to the theater, they’ll have to do better [...]

Strange G-Mail Delays

tinkertim — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 07:39:24 +0000

This morning, I began noticing that e-mail was being delivered up to several days late via G-Mail. I haven’t seen anything on Google’s blogs or updates regarding it, so I’m guessing that I’m the beneficiary of a very minor and localized bug. How fortunate for me. If you have been sending e-mail to my G-Mail [...]

Mercurial Tricks : Counting Insertions

tinkertim — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:51:35 +0000

Do you have a policy where patches that make above nn number of insertions or deletions require review before being pushed? We do, but the policy is quite loose. Actually, it is sufficiently loose to manage the whole process with simple commit hooks. I was digging through Mercurial today to see if it had a [...]

How Assertions Became “Evil”

tinkertim — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 06:01:03 +0000

I’ve spent the better part of two days tracking down what turned out to be a very stupid and avoidable bug in a library (that shall remain nameless). Examine the following piece of seemingly innocent code: str = realloc(str, len); assert(str != NULL); Some of you are probably howling at your monitor by now. Guess [...]

What I Think Of Assange

tinkertim — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 19:00:36 +0000

At this point, my thoughts most likely dwindle on becoming obsolete, but I’ll post them anyway. When a sensational glob of information is posted, I’m thrown back to the Nixon era. George Wiley is technically my uncle, though, unfortunately he met his demise long before our familial relationship began. When I hear the word “scandal”, [...]

The Engineering Panic Room

tinkertim — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 09:00:01 +0000

Have you ever been in a situation where you were forced to act knowing that the margin for error was zero? I think that most of us have, perhaps just avoiding an animal on the road without swerving into oncoming traffic while driving. In a crisis, the most appropriate response usually comes not from thinking, [...]