Scott Adcox

You Have To See The Special Man!

Scott — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:55:35 +0000

Classic New Orleans commercial. The only thing that has come close to this commercial since it originally aired are the “Biggest-no-brainer-in-the-history-of-earth” commercials for Lennox Financial. Enjoy this one from Frankie and Johnny.

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Obama’s NASA Talk Here in April

Scott — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:11:34 +0000

Prediction — a pretty short speech that’s very abstract on the details (hardly an outline) that is moving and uplifting…until you realize there aren’t any details. I’m guessing this is pretty much a political effort to attempt to keep folks in these parts positive on his plan until after the November elections.

After that, NASA gets poleaxed.

You have to know it’s the secret dream every freshman studying aerospace engineering to one day have the opportunity to fudge climate data. Now they may get their chance.

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Agile Software and Agile Legislation

Scott — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:40:59 +0000

Neville’s latest, What if Congress Adopted the Agile Manifesto, is truly great.

You can read the whole post at the jump, but here’s my favorite part:

10) Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.
…I think Congress skipped this step. Oh well, it was the only “essential” step.

I’ve long been an advocate of Congress getting as little “work done” as possible. Congress working means us either paying higher taxes or losing liberties–often times both. If you ever hear your Congressman bragging about how many pieces of legislation he’s had passed, vote that guy out as quickly as possible.

Oh, and if you aren’t familiar with the Agile Manifesto principles for software development, well…why are you still reading this? Click the link.

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Running Playlist Song #7

Scott — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:22:40 +0000

Tesla – Gettin’ Better.

The only thing that could make this better was if you replaced every cigarette in the video with a Coors Light tall boy. That’s a program I could get with.

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PubSubHubbub for WordPress

Scott — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:42:10 +0000

Probably something you want to have to get your content put out there faster. Doesn’t hurt, right? And there’s a plugin if you’re hosting WP yourself.

In a nutshell, instead of having to periodically ask your blog if there are any updates they can now register to automatically receive updates each time you publish new content. In most cases these updates are sent out with in a second or two of when you hit the publish button.

via a Matt Cutts tweet.

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Running Playlist Song #6

Scott — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:31:01 +0000

Great for beating yourself up during a run because what you did last night is causing you great pain now.

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Running Playlist #5

Scott — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:12:09 +0000

Some things will never change…Backwater by The Meat Puppets

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Running Playlist Song #4

Scott — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:08:49 +0000

Banditos by The Refreshments

I got the pistol, so I’ll keep the pesos. That seems fair.

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Gov’ment Needs Some Very Special Engineers

Scott — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:28:55 +0000

Via Instapundit: NHTSA Has No Software Engineers To Analyze Toyota

Not only are they missing software engineers in general, they may be in need of engineers with some very special knowledge. There are potentially two different software components involved in auto electronics. First, obviously, there’s the actual firmware that runs the electronic controllers.

But another possible point of failure exists in the software that tests the electronics. To make things simple, imagine a specialized computer that interfaces with an electronic controller and simulates the inputs coming to the controller from the vehicle. This computer also measures the responses of the electronics based on these different states. These tests are developed based on a very comprehensive, rigorous, and strict set of requirements and specifications. If the setup for the tests and measurements are documented incorrectly, or if these tests were performed incorrectly or (eek) not at all, there could be a problem.

Now, let’s just say this…

In a former life, I was employed by a company that may or may not have been involved in manufacturing automotive electronics. And I may or may not have worked as one of the software engineers who programmed the testing computers. These test programs may or may not have been written in a programming language that was developed internally by the supplier and not used in any other company or industry. So it would take either specific knowledge to do an audit of this software, or at least a bit of time invested in learning how that language works.

Oh yeah…this company may or may not have been a major electronics supplier to Toyota.

I’m glad there haven’t been any issues with the model years I may or may not have been involved in testing.

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Stuff You Should See– January 5th through January 7th

Practice, Practice, Practice

Scott — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:14:10 +0000

I know it’s old, but it will NEVER get old to me.

“How the hell can I make my teammates better by practicin’?!?!”

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