Harry's Ruminations

User story: As a developer, I want to tag my code every so often, so that other people can get code that's stable, not bleeding edge. This is the classic CVS usecase: Commit your code, and then tag it as 'Production' or 'Released' or whatever. In CVS, that entails touching every file. In Subversion, that's a constant-time operation you can do wholly on the server. Let's say you want to copy your current /trunk to /tags/release-1.0 tag. Issue this sort of command svn copy http://server.foo.com/Repo/trunk http://server.foo.com/Repo/tags/release-1.0 Great huh? Thing is, that's great for leaving a trail of tags in your wake (Beta 1 -> Beta 'N', Release 1.0 -> 2600). What it's NOT good for is for the 'moving tag' usecase: I want to tag my code and then change that tag to point at a new revision of code. This is useful for when 2 modules are evolving towards a release: \module1 \trunk \common \module2 \trunk \...

[Insert obligatory apology/observation about not updating my blog here] It's a brand new me, folks. Less introspective. Focused on "What" and "How", not "Why." 'Why' is an empty question where one can spend one's whole life. I'm 30 now. I'm married. I have two kids I love very much. I also have no idea who I really am. Most of this blog from these many years is complete B.S., I'm afraid--at least the stuff about me. I'm hoping I've turned a corner, and I got a sign about that the other day: I got something back that I thought was lost. Years ago, the last time I thought I "had it together" I had a coffee cup that I used to take everywhere with me at work. I drank less coffee then, but I'd still fill it with water in the afternoons. Right after I proposed to Whitney, I lost it. Last Wednesday, I found it on a shelf, forgotten in one of our labs. Maybe certain things go away and just return whe...

Someone gunned-down George Tiller in cold blood in his church Sunday. That he happened to be an abortion clinic doctor is immaterial. Vigilante justice, retribution, and demagoguery are not roads we need go down in this country--it's been done before .

I enjoyed Memorial Day quite a bit. Our trip to Kings Island (formerly Paramount's Kings Island) was great. I would actually call it an achievement--we didn't overtire ourselves, and we never had a desire to strangle one another. For the Combs clan, that's an achievement. We got there at 6pm Friday, having checked-in to our excellent Courtyard Inn in Blue Ash and settled our stuff. A 20 minute wait for our Gold passes later, we were in the park and headed towards Nickelodeon, standing in awe of the new ride, Diamondback. As I've tweeted and Facebooked---WOW, what a ride. Beautiful, graceful curves--it's a transcendent beauty that's really themed the wrong way. The ride's not a snake at all, it's a tour de force of elegance and grace. A shark theme would have been better. Anyway, so we settled into an alternating pattern--Joey would ride, then Maria would ride. Where we could, we rode all togeter. As the sun set, Whitney piped-up: "Harold h...

Linky Simply put, this regulation will be the end of the automobile industry (and possibly the automobile itself). They want 42mpg fleet AVERAGE? Given current regulations, the 2009 Honda Civic Hybrid gets 42mpg average. Nearly EVERY OTHER CAR on the road will underperform. They want these regulations by 2016...understand, that's ONE GENERATION in automotive terms, given the 5-year product lifecycles the carmakers deal with. The 2011 and 2012 cars are already done and in the pipeline at this point. Sheesh, not like the automakers had much choice. . .so they now have consumers who can't buy a car and a government that ties both hands behind their backs. Americans won't buy cars that run on pixie farts, go 0-60 in a couple weeks, and hold 2 people. We're big people spread across a large continent who assume safe, comfortable transportation. My prediction: The next shoe to drop is a $5/gallon tax on gasoline. That's the only way you're going to drive the mea...

So, as anyone who's followed my blog for a year or more knows, I got motorcycle fever last spring and summer. It all started innocently enough. I got a ride on my father in law's scooter (hey, I had the helmet already thanks to autocross, right?) It was something of a disaster--maneuvering the 600cc scooter at low speed wasn't *quite* as easy as I thought. Long boring story later, I had full-blown fever. I took the MSF course and REALLY learned how to ride, FINE-C, the whole deal. Then came the apodiction: "YOU WILL NOT BUY A MOTORCYCLE." Fair enough. Thought I had a loophole today--an ATV. Del, my carpool buddy, hatched a plan of engineering perfection. An ATV's offroad vehicle, far away from Semi's and other could-squash-you-like-a-bug stuff. Fits quite well, no? No. They're deathtraps. That's also a NO on Dirtbikes. Jetski's show promise

So, Sunday, I decided to do something completely out of character--I took a nap. My wife took one look at my cranky-pants self after church and said, "You need a Nap for Jesus." Which is a polite way of saying, "Jesus, Harold...take a nap!" Anyway, my bizarro dream went like this: [Interior. Lab environment. Soft lighting, muted hum of machinery] Serge: Hello, Harold. I'm Sergey Brin. This is Larry Page. You might know us...we founded Google. Harold: Umm....Hi. Serge: So, we've been studying this Twitter phenomenon for quite a few years now. What do you think of Twitter? Harold: Oh, I like it. Larry: Hmm...interesting. [Harold notices he's reclined on a couch, his brain wired up to some sort of halo device] Harold: Are you READING MY THOUGHTS? Serge: Possibly. So, Harold, tell us how your mother laughs. Harold: What? NO! Serge: Nevermind...this one's uninteresting. Send him back to his bed. [White light. Fade to black] * * * And, then ...