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Testing Windows Live Writer

2008-12-17T18:11:00.001-06:00

Yet another blog fading to the search engines.

Required C# Extension Method for WinForms Programmers

2008-06-16T18:53:00.001-05:00

Why I Drink Good Coffee

2008-05-10T08:30:00.001-05:00

Good coffee doesn't imply expensive. It merely pleases the palette
with flavors from where it grew.

Good coffee transports your thoughts to its origin and connects you to
the memories of travel and desires of future adventures.

Good coffee energizes you with its taste, not its caffeine.

The Future

2008-04-30T09:49:00.004-05:00

The future of everything is integration.

The quest for a unified theory of everything is the best known example of why we could stagnate our understanding of everyday things.

The complexity of computers is just one problem that isn't treated correctly by those who don't understand it. In order for humans to continue to grow as a species, we'll have to overcome our limited views of the world and understand concepts from the smallest to largest levels.

Good luck to all of us.

Good Rickstab

2008-04-25T19:13:00.002-05:00

Good Rickstab, originally uploaded by millerb.

Here's a good one. Sucker got stabbed and rickrolled. Rickstabbed FTW.

Code Comment You Don't Want to See

2008-04-25T07:11:00.000-05:00

// error handling has NOT been tested and may cause errors.

Overhead FAIL

2008-04-15T17:42:00.000-05:00

Perl, BrainF***, and MUMPS

2008-04-11T17:37:00.001-05:00

Perl and BrainF*** have nothing on MUMPS.

Traffic

2008-04-10T17:08:00.000-05:00

Being stuck in traffic is too clown shoe for me.

Coffee Review: Archer Farms Bolivia Caranavi

2008-04-10T06:58:00.003-05:00

Archer Farms Bolivia Caranavi. I bought it expecting it to be decent, having convinced myself that the tin-can Archer Farms coffees are nothing more than repackaged European Roasterie beans.

I was blown away. The first pot I made rivaled Paradise Roasters lower-tier beans. It's well worth the $.80/oz or so price tag.

MVC FAIL

2008-04-04T19:09:00.000-05:00

22000+ line Windows Form file.

MVC FAIL

Picard Song

2008-04-03T21:14:00.002-05:00

I'm hooked on DarkMateria's Picard Song. I love the New Order samples and the Zlad one is just perfect.

I don't recognize the other samples.

Yes, I'm way behind the meme.

Rickstabbing

2008-04-02T18:35:00.004-05:00

I invented Rickstabbing in Team Fortress 2.

1. Spray your Rick Astley avatar such that it will appear in the "killed by" snapshot.
2. Stab your opponent.

Stop. Singleton Time!

2008-03-27T12:10:00.003-05:00

Singleton:

In software engineering, the singleton pattern is a design pattern that is used to restrict instantiation of a class to one object. This is useful when exactly one object is needed to coordinate actions across the system. Sometimes it is generalized to systems that operate more efficiently when only one or a few objects exist. It is also considered an anti-pattern since it is often used as a euphemism for global variable.

If you've ever come across one of these in a software project, please read the superb Ars Technica thread about them right now. It's by far the best discussion of this "pattern".

Coffee Costs

2008-03-25T18:01:00.005-05:00

Here's a list I compiled a few months ago when I tried to find the cheapest staple coffee I could tolerate. I went ahead and picked a few of the more expensive favorites.

I am Coffee

2008-03-21T17:27:00.002-05:00

I've had the following today:

Large White Mocha with 4 shots of espresso
Large White Mocha with 3 shots of espresso
10oz regular coffee
10oz regular coffee
Large espresso (4 shots)

Beer as dark and thick as oil

2008-03-14T12:36:00.002-05:00

Goose Island Bourbon Stout, 2007, is an intense beer. At 13.5% alcohol, with a fairly strong bourbon aftertaste, it's a definite sipper.

Visual Basic is Dangerous

2008-03-09T10:57:00.003-05:00

After less than 5 days of cleaning up Visual Basic.Net code, I've gotten in to the habit of omitting semi-colons from the end of my statements.

I just shifted back to some C# code in my personal code library at home and found myself missing the semi-colons.

Last Used On....The Future

2008-03-09T09:15:00.001-05:00

Last Used On....The Future, originally uploaded by millerb.

I hope I'm dead by January 9, 2072. I'd rather not pay taxes that year, especially with an out of date program.

Fail-Dog

2008-03-01T08:45:00.002-06:00

Fail-Dog, originally uploaded by superoogie.

Let's hear your guesses as to how he got up there. I think he may have jumped up from a car roof that is off camera.

Operation: GTFO

2008-02-29T19:32:00.002-06:00

I'm happy to report, Operation: GTFO, was completed early (by 2 days) and successfully on Wednesday, February 27th, 2008, at 4pm CST.

Real Vacation

2008-02-26T17:23:00.003-06:00

I got back from Paris late last night, yet I still felt relaxed and rested today at work. Even though we spent a busy 2.5 days in Paris, I felt like we stuck to our dense plan, but still went with the flow.

Comparing this to my 5.5 days spent in Jamaica, I felt more relaxed in Paris. Specifically, the walk, sit, walk cycle is what did it. I don't like walking all day and I don't like sitting/sunning all day.

I think this means my best vacations those that do interesting things, yet approach them leisurely. I'm not a beech guy and I'm not a mountain climber guy. I'm somewhere in between.

NWA World Business Class is Great

2008-02-26T09:32:00.000-06:00

History Repeating Itself

2008-02-19T09:08:00.002-06:00

By 1901, Brazil had converted too much of its farm land to coffee production. They subsequently found themselves importing flour for high cost when they could simply grow it domestically.

I immediately thought of the corn for Ethanol situation the USA is currently in. How long can we keep up this shortsightedness?

Ode to StarTeam

2008-02-15T10:11:00.001-06:00

Ode to StarTeam

Oh, StarTeam
How you waste our time
If I'm not waiting for refreshes
I'm waiting for you to crash