~Sterling

A New Employer

Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:04:17 PDT

Phew! This has been a whirlwind week and I can now break the silence and talk about it openly. Today, I gave Boomer Consulting two weeks notice and signed my shiny new contract to start work with Grant Street Group. This has been simmering for a bit, so I’ll tell the story of how we got here.

A little more than two years ago I left Kansas State University to give up systems administration to seek a job

Must Read Article on Ethanol

Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:02:50 PDT

As we see fuel prices reaching all time highs and milk, meat, corn, and even rice now reaching new records in price, when will we start seeing the truth about how dangerous ethanol is? Ben Lieberman’s article at the Heritage Foundation titled Time for Second Thoughts on the Ethanol Mandate should be required reading for Congress. Lieberman outlines recent research finding the ethanol mandates implemented by C

Mr. Gates, Get a Grip

Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:17:33 PDT

I read an article at Ars Technica quoting a comment Bill Gates gave to a question during a speech he gave on pharmaceutical research. The answer shows that he is both badly informed and he’s got a very elitist point of view regarding Free Software and Open Source.

His first mistake was making the statement that there’s a difference between “free software

Voting Conservative in 2008

Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 17:49:54 PDT

It’s too early to be picking candidates. The primaries this year have been just irritatingly early in starting and irritatingly long to end. However, I can tell you, as I intend to in this post, how I will make the decision of which candidate to choose.

I base my voting decisions upon three primary factors: Qualification, Character, and Policy. These three factors are not exclusive and do not override one another, but I would place them in that order from most important to least

Lifetime Limit to Exclamation Points

Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:17:01 PDT

In seventh grade, I still lived in Lawrence, Kansas. I know. Poor me. However, my English teacher’s name was, strangely enough, Mrs. Lawrence. Mrs. Lawrence was an interesting person. I remember that she once bragged that she had been committed to an institution and was literally certifiable. She also once told a story about how the US government was experimenting with monkeys and robots and had actually grafted a monkey’s head onto a robot’s body and the monkey was able to

I Like Big Bugs

Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:41:35 PDT

Sorry for the Sir Mixalot reference there. Ahem. Anyway, I just had a coworker walk by my desk and say something like, “Don’t you just wish we could get rid of all these glitches and be done with them?” She left before I could answer and I think it was rhetorical (it’s hard for me to switch gears to interpret social signals while in the midst of concentrating on code). My answer was going to, “Uh, no. I like finding bugs.” In this sense, I’d agree wit

New Bouncy Ball

Terri Hanenkamp — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:50:40 PDT

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"Moo, Baa, La La La"

Terri Hanenkamp — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:49:21 PDT

Gabe "reads" one of his favorite books.

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Fun with Messes

Terri Hanenkamp — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:43:24 PDT

We tried out all sorts of fun messy things in the last few months.

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Fun with Dad: January through March

Terri Hanenkamp — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:23:04 PDT

Sorry for the long hiatus. The monitor on my mac died, so I haven't been able to edit video for quite some time. In any case, we're back with lots more movies!

Here are a few clips of Gabe and Daddy doing what they do best.

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Perl is not going away

Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:00:55 PDT

I’ve been taking DDJ for a couple years now. It’s cheap and occasionally has something interesting in it, but it’s been less interesting than I remember it being when I read it in college. I’ve been much more enamored with the Communciations of the ACM. Today, I received my issue and there’s an interview with Paul Jansen of TIOBE Software. In the article, he’

Google StreetView: My Old House

Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:13:24 PDT

Google StreetView is cool, but mildly disturbing. Since Manhattan hasn't been cataloged yet and I can't show you my actual house, here's a view of the house I grew up in in Lawrence. If you follow around Lance Court you can see one of the owners since we lived there added a big fence and a pool around back.

My Mac blew up like the Movies

Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:47:03 PDT

Here's a nifty little slideshow of my Mac screen from a few minutes ago while the compositing engine went haywire. Basically, I went to lunch, came back and when I moved the mouse to get rid of the screensaver I was getting some really nice visual effects. Maybe I should have taken a movie because there was some nice animation going on too.

<article> <h1>Never-Ending Software Timelines</h1> <p>Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:35:52 PDT</p> I have a certain frustration with due dates. I have determined that this frustration stems from a misunderstanding of the nature of software and their timelines. I am, therefore, banishing the terms "due date" and "deadline" from the realm of software project timelines (as a lot of software engineering literature has wisely already done) and insist that the word "milestone" be used in its place. Why?<br /><br />When you decide to create a piece of software to perform some task, you are starting </article> <article> <h1>Andrew? Sterling? Which is it!?</h1> <p>Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 18:13:41 PDT</p> Okay, so just about every time I start to get to know someone new this question inevitably comes up. The basic confusion is that I like to use my full name on things, Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp, and sometimes I use Andrew and sometimes I use Sterling and things get really confusing. I'm writing this blog post to try and explain the history of my name and the basic issues involved with its multiple uses.<br /><br />I was born, Andrew Sterling Hanenkamp. I'm not exactly sure where "Andrew" came fro </article> </main></body></html>