Internet Todo List for Enthusiastic Thinkers, S1E2
I’d like to take issue with the way July of the year 2012 is arranged on a calendar. I just am not feeling this whole national holiday on a Wednesday thing. You end up with a two Mondays, two Fridays, and what feels like two Sundays. I just don’t think it’s very optimal. Further, my birthday lands on a Tuesday this month, so I’m left with a similar predicament. Do I take a four-day weekend, or do I put up with a two-Monday week? Thanks a lot, Gregorian calendar!
All the fireworks
On Wednesday, San Diego made an “awesome/whups!” and set off an entire firework show in one glorious moment. Thumbs up!
Learn to write
Fact: I will judge you by how well you write. The majority of sharp people I’ve ever worked with were excellent writers. Of course there are exceptions, but most of the terrible writers I’ve known weren’t very good at communicating or didn’t have very great ideas. For this reason, I join Michael Lopp in insisting you learn to write. It’s a great way to hone your thinking and get better at putting your ideas into other people’s heads.
Database cross-pollination
When I used MongoDB on a project several years ago, the feature that impressed me most was upsert, a way to atomically create or update a record in the database. This is incredibly useful for metric systems, but pretty damn handy elsewhere too.
Turns out this is pretty possible with ye olde relational database. This Ruby gem implements upserts for SQLite, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. Sounds like fun!
A great writer, a great turtle
I normally skim the weekly obituary in The Economist. But, occasionally, they are really fantastic. The fantastic ones are usually remembrances of notable animals. This week’s is even better: it weaves together the lives of Nora Ephron and Lonesome George, a Galapagos tortoise.
Lonesome George could relate to that. Though he was probably the last surviving example of the giant Galápagos tortoise Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii, he too refused to perform. Scientists, tourists, journalists, conservationists and the government of Ecuador all waited for two decades for him to mate successfully or, indeed, get it on at all. He wasn’t playing. In 1993 two females of a slightly different subspecies were put into his corral. He ignored them.
Seems like a turtle I would have liked to meet. I would’ve also loved to meet Nora Ephron; I think I could have learned a few things about humor and life from her.
Phil Collins does Motown
I watched a show on Phil Collins’ album of Motown covers. It’s a pretty great hour of docu-advertising. I listened to a few of them the other day and I was pretty pleased. He’s done good work trying to recreate these songs, with many of the same musicians from Hitsville, USA, while putting his own spin on it.
My issue lies with his spin. It’s not at all bad, and he’s certainly gotta do something different from the original performers. That said, I noticed that Phil Collins can’t seem to bare to let two musical phrases go unconnected. This is very evident in “Uptight”; there’s a sort of “shutdown rest” that Stevie Wonder does perfectly and Phil Collins just can’t let himself near it.
I think this “shutdown” rest is what gives Motown some of its characteristic sound. When a singer or instrumental part ends a phrase on a staccato note and then leaves a bar or more of space, it’s an emphatic punctuation. It adds to the larger rhythm of the song and makes the song more understandable as a series of phrases. When Phil Collins takes some of that punctuation out, he starts to sound like Christopher Walken (But not. The way. That. People impersonate Christopher. Walken.)
I’m making a mountain out of a quibble though. The album, Going Back is a bonafide jam and you should get it. Loudly blasting it is optional, but understandable.
You might have missed it
- Protect that state - another piece on concurrent Ruby, this time on the oft-maligned topic of locking.
- Too eager to add code - on my tendency, of late, to add code instead of digging in and refactoring or refurbishing existing code.
This has been Volume 1, Issue 2 of the Internet Todo List for Enthusiastic Thinkers. It’s kind of how I’d do a late night talk show, for nerds like me.