TedPage

I enjoyed this little poem by David Patterson about man, and his DSL modem. I hope that he finds one, but I found it amusing enough to repost here:

'Twas the morn before christmas, when all through the house
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The hub was a hubbing on the shelf with great care,
ensuring my server was available to share.

The lord of the house (me) was asleep in my bed
while visions of email/blogs/websites danced in my head.
**cant think of a good rhyme for the next 2 lines.
**pleh.

When peaked through the window a light so shiny,
The xmas eve(morning) sunshine beamed on my hiney.
Away to the computer I flew in a dash,
stopping only for coffee (c'mon, it was early).

The glow of the monitor on my sleep-weary eyes,
evolution2.x filtering the spam I despise.
"Lets check out slashdot" as I start out my rounds,
what the heck..."Website cannot be found"?

Freshmeat, CNN, DailyKOS, and the Drudge...
All the same message, "oh man...oh fudge..."
I have some more coffee to clear out my head
and slowly the horror sinks in...my modem is dead.

posted on Mon, 27 Dec 2004 at 11:10 | permanent link

In looking for ways to describe the difference between open source and more traditional development methodologies I came up with this little analogy. This is a subject that is surprisingly hard to understand, and it goes against the theories of industrialization that we have been taught since grade school. But, it is important to understand, and here is one analogy that might help even though it is a little macabre.

I would like to bring forward the example of butchering a cow. A butcher is very methodical about how the cow is sliced, making sure there is no wasted movement, and that the cow is split in well defined pieces. But, a butcher is also doing a cost-benefit analysis on his cutting. He leaves hard to get, high effort, meat on the carcass because it is more efficient for him to leave that meat, and move on to another cow. This is how standard software development works. It is efficient when you look at the per-worker costs, but it does involve several trade offs through out the development process.

In the open source development model the cow problem is solved like a school of piranha. Everyone attacks the larger problem, but at different points and takes very small, but effective bites. Now, this isn't as efficient as the butcher in the amount of energy that expended removing the meat from the body of the cow, but it is distributed such that each fish does a little bit of the work. And, in the end, there is no meat left on any of the bones as even the little compromises get consumed.

posted on Mon, 27 Dec 2004 at 00:42 | permanent link

There was an interesting editorial in East Valley Tribune today that was talking about the increased discussion of secularism involving the Christmas holiday. He made a good point that I think needs to be repeated. "Christ needs to be reintroduced into Christmas in the homes and churches of Christians. This is where Christ belongs. Christ doesn't need to be in shopping malls." (not a direct quote, because I recycled the paper). I like the sentiment, and the idea that religon is a very personal thing, not a public one. That being said, Merry Christmas to all those who celibrate that holiday.

posted on Sat, 25 Dec 2004 at 15:37 | permanent link

I'm very excited to say that I'll be a speaker at the SoCal Linux Expo. I'll be speaking on SVG and Inkscape, which will be very exciting.

posted on Thu, 23 Dec 2004 at 02:32 | permanent link