December 2009 Archives

I keep the stocks I track in a mysql database. This database will get rather large, as I'm tracking quite a few instruments. Indeed, every day I run a script to check the prices and it takes exponentially longer (5 ms, 25 ms, 125ms, 625 ms, 15625ms, 390625ms, 9765625ms, etc.). I don't want to wait almost 3 minutes for the price a week later, so I looked into query optimisation, starting with EXPLAIN. More details follow, after the flip...

That Brazen Careerist, Penelope Trunk, teaches us how to keep our new year's resolution. My own advice, make the following resolution in addition to any others you make: I resolve to break at least one of the above by December 31, 2010. Hey, it worked for me and I have kept 2 resolutions: I got a Blu-Ray player and I'm still single.

Every so often, on Facebook, I'll get friend requests from people whose names I don't recall and have no friends in common with. I'm going to assume that those individuals on the network skew young in majority and therefore will have results in other places on the Internet. While there are parts of the Internet that aren't reachable from Google, it's a good gauge. So, if the person hasn't indicated how we know each other and we don't have friends in common, I'll pop their name into Google and see how many results come up with their names (and perhaps their universities). If none, I'm not interested in dealing with the person and if there are a shedload of results, I'll go through the first few before deciding. Of course, the easiest way to get my friendship on Facebook is to tell me how you know me or how we could mutually benefit from connecting.

I just saw Invictus. Superb acting on the part of both Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. The accents of both American leads sounded (to this non-South African) genuine, but I'm sure at least one reader will think different. I will now keep my word and purchase tickets to see this movie in the local cineplex whenever I can.

After catching Scoble on Friendfeed, I headed down to the Ritz in Half Moon Bay, where we talked about the economy and other topics of mutual interest, how Nokia, Sony and Microsoft have lost the plot, my conundrum regarding my old blog, how to maintain your sanity in a world confronted when everything is rapidly changing, et al. It was an interesting conversation and Robert's a great guy. I'm greatly anticipating our next meeting.

The link contains the settings I used for my camera to take the picture; it isn't retouched in the least, uploaded straight from the sensor.

Matthew Hurst notes that Google Maps Street View is wonky:

If you enter Google's street view mode in their mapping product at the crossroads of Broadway and Denny in Seattle you will find that while the imagery is correct (if a little dated), the addresses that are associated with these locations change from Seattle to Renton (an approximate distance of at least 12 miles) as you turn the corner.

It's actually even weirder, as if you continue one more block, you're back in Seattle. It's almost as if the maps database has a location-tile mapping bug, of the software variety, not the biological sort.

According to our mates over at lifehacker, a developer build of opera 10.5 has been released in the wild. Looking through the news release, I found it does not support printing on the Mac. Given the browser has been rewritten in Cocoa, and it is downright trivial to add printing, I don't see why opera is missing it. I like to save pages often, mostly using the print-to-PDF function in OS X. So, the minute you lot add it, you can count me as a beta tester.

This should make for interesting fodder among some, but Ford (yea, fix-or-repair-daily found-on-road-dead) is outsourcing quality control for its SYNC system.

... Or so claims postgres' JDBC driver, whilst perl and the command line accomplish the goal. What on Earth is wrong?

For those who reviewed this tag, yes, I started out using a different database, but I'd like to leverage best practises when I do deadline-less projects.

Our mate over at dumb little man has a list of beliefs shared by the successful few.

Lifehacker tells us how to get free Internet access on flights. There are even more tips in the comments on the entry.

Some who are familiar with how my other blog is setup know that it the content sat on a drive at CERN and that I refer to the box as Geneva, after the city it lives in. I finally got a chance to speak to my uncle, who works at CERN and under whose auspices the box exists. It would appear the hard drive was making loud, weird noises and so he just pulled down the whole server. I'm blaming the LHC myself.

I use mint, despite its being under new management. I'm not in the mood nor do I have the time to duplicate its functionality to import transactions from various financial institutions. At present, I have a cron job to import the CSV file that mint exports, but I have to do the export manually. So, Intuit, when you claim that mint will continue to innovate, kindly note that this entry contains an innovation that would be most welcome by this user of your service.

When using Netflix Widgets to extend my queue, I noticed it defaults to the DVD version of the movie, when my preferences indicate I prefer Blu-Ray.

For the longest time, I've known that movable type has had RSS 2.0 feeds, but it would appear that they've dropped the old RSS feed in favour of what appears to be ATOM 1.0. I posted my RSS 2.0 template. Feel free to download, tweak and let me know.

About.com has tips to get maintain concentration. Not very detailed, but hey, it is a start.

I was driving home last night from the California Cafe and noticed a number of signs saying "don't drink and drive" and thought of George Lakoff and framing issues. If you tell someone what they should not do, it becomes a forbidden fruit. Better is to just say "stay sobre". MADD, take note, you mention "drink" or "drunk" no less than 9 times on your homepage. Kind of makes me question your motives in this regard.

I parked my car in the garage downstairs and it seems that the kill switch got loose again. As this is the second time in a week, I'm getting ready to take the car in to San Francisco Honda as soon as I get this sorted.

This is a pie-in-the-sky idea, not researched at all, but hopefully, I'll get around to looking into it, but has anyone tried powering an automobile the same way one powers point and shoot digital cameras? Namely, treble-A batteries. One of the devices I used to have growing up took 32 of these things.

A very good, trusted friend in Europe reports that one of the lads at our Regents Park mosque was snatched by blokes with American flags on their uniform. Can I now say plus ça change, President Obama?

SFist reports that a couple of ballot initiatives will raise car registrations 60% to $376 if passed, but the Examiner does not give what the measure will be called, so do read your ballots carefully this November. It also states that there will most likely be a $10 congestion charge, payable yearly in advance.

Personally, I'd rather see it like TfLs and assessed on a daily basis, or better yet, per-use and postpaid at the end of the month (or year). During the year, you're entry/exit from the congestion charge zone would be tracked and the amount would be added to your registration cost the following year. That would be optimal and be truly pay-per-use.

I had a late night dinner at the Phoenix and parked across the street. When I was ready to leave, I found the fucking kill switch in my car had fallen out of place. Some passer-by, representing himself as a car mechanic, offered to help and claimed to reset my battery. After the car was started, I got inside and noticed that the bugger had wondered off with my ipod.

Local blog, SFist, links to a Gate piece listing the top 100 wines of 2009. It is a tad Pinot-heavy, but it's good stuff, regardless (and I like red wine!).

I seriously didn't believe natalala's tweet regarding snow in the Bay Area. After all, I do live around here and don't see snow outside my window. But, it turns out SFist has pictures to the contrary. One is shown below:

I showed up here last night, around 11pm after finding parking in the dodgy neighbourhood. I ordered a small and was served by the owner. They do not have a wine list, a shame for an Italian place, but that aside... The food was very good, if a tad heavy. I went home and woke up with an upset stomach -- I blame the cheese, as I do have a slight lactose intolerance.

If they were to relocate to a more, uhh, hospitable neighbourhood, I'd go more often. I'd like to skip getting vomit on my rear window, many thanks! ;)

Wikihow teaches how to make sbiten, a Russian liqueur designed to keep the drinker warm. Can be made in either alcoholic or virgin variations and seems pretty straightforward.

I went here to celebrate my birthday (thanks again for all the wishes from all 7 corners of the world) hoping to meet some mates there. I met the barstaff and had a great time with them. Good cheese, and I had my first glass of Lebanese wine, from the Bequaa valley. It was actually a bit smokier than I'd have liked, but it was good nonetheless.

It started with a conversation citing something I noticed when comparing unemployment figures in the US and the European Union, this conversation was tweeted, in summary, of course, by my angel, now mint picked it up and posted a video and longer explanation of it. If it hasn't been picked up already, the mainstream media is next.

Conventional wisdom dictates that privatisation leads to more efficient systems due to less overhead and greater adaptability. This is, like most conventional views, highly simplistic. The private sector can be just as inefficient (look to oligarchies for good examples of this, such as the financial sector). The reason the big banks are generally not whinged about as often is because their inefficiencies are clouded in opaqueness. The board meetings of Goldman Sachs are not attended by reporters the same way the White House press conferences are and the minutes of said meetings (if they exist at all) are not as scrutinised as the statements of the president. This aspect of openness, on the part of the public sector, underlies the inefficiencies of the public sector. There are a shedload of hours that go into filling out forms, and making sure our leaders have greater transparency than our favourite bank. I think this tradeoff is a good one. Maybe we need less emphasis on efficiency and more on transparency?

I am repeatedly introduced to mnemonics, in this case by Lifehacker, only to forget about it shortly thereafter. Many people I respect immensely use it, but I've never been able to get my head around how to use it.

Mnemonics is using memorable phrases to remember unrelated, novel information. For instance, "My Very Earnest Mother Just Sat Under the Newcastle Player" could be the mnemonics for the Solar Systems' planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto). Yes, I'm aware that Pluto is no longer a planet, so, as George is fond of saying, eat your heart out!

I just stumbled across moneytrackin through Martin's weblog. While I've been using mint to manage my finances, there was something missing -- decent mobile access. In other words, I'd like to be sitting at a restaurant, get my cheque, take a picture of the receipt with my mobile, send it to moneytrackin through whatever scheme they choose to use, and have it added to my account, using OCR and the photo's geotagging. Except for the OCR part, this is entirely possible. So, for now, I'd settle for an email gateway with the receipt info.

I'm not particularly fond of web design, but I do realise the importance of having pride in your life, work, and all that you do. To that end, I'm linking to browsera, which, according to lifehacker, purports to be "an all-in-one, web-based tool for testing web sites for errors, complications, and layout issues."

ikeahacker links to a video regarding turning a dresser and 2 bookshelf cabinets into a holiday bar.