I came across this gallery of portraits by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Definitely worth a look.

Jennie stayed up all night for a blog-a-thon to raise money for a worthy cause. Read her posts for the details.

There is really something unique about staying up all night. In fact I have been thinking about taking a 24 hour road trip. I haven’t really done that in a number of years. Aboriginal people had their vision quests … I have mine. Mine includes driving well past safety margins, eating only a places within site of the freeway and consuming way to much salt and sugar along the way. It’s best practiced with a companion, who starts out happy but somewhere along the way loses their charm or charms. Instead of meeting some sort of animal guide, you’ll eventually come close to side swiping some sort of SUV but the effect will be largely the same.

U.S. Botanical Garden has an example of the Titan Arum, which has the largest flower of any plant and smells like rotting flesh. Evidently it is blooming now.

I’ll have nightmares about this flower.

“The plant accumulates energy through its enormous leaves, some reaching greater than 18 feet tall and 15 feet in diameter …. Average recorded size of the inflorescence [flower] is about 5 feet, and the largest one is said to have been 12 ft in height! The plant lasts about 2 days at full bloom before falling into an exhausted heap.”

Good article in Software Developement Magazine on the human cost of context switching. (Requires annoying registration I believe.)

“Gerald Weinberg, in Quality Software Management, Vol. 1, Systems Thinking (Dorset House, 1992), estimates the context-switching cost among three tasks to be 40 percent. That means that 40 percent of your available work time is spent on non-task activities. The rest of the time is split among the three projects. So, if you thought that in a 45-hour week, you could spend 15 hours on each of three tasks, don’t kid yourself. You’re really spending eight hours on project A; eight hours on project B; eight hours on project C; and 24 hours context-switching, figuring out where you were and what you have to do next. The time spent on each project works out to about half of what you expected.”

I find weeks where I can concentrate unfettered, either at home or at work are the most satisfying and the most productive.

Interesting book, Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective
by Diomidis Spinellis . Chapter Two is available online. It seems to have useful detail and examples. I may have to buy this.

I haven’t written much as my niece and nephew from Chico, California.

It has been a whirlwind tour. We went to the Mall of America twice, visited relatives, camped in the BWCAW, spent time fishing and boating on Lake Vermillion, went to see the Twins,
Bunker Lake Wave Pool, Shoreview indoor pool, had lunch in Duluth, visited the International Wolf Center, ate at the Chocolate Moose in Ely, and shopped at Piragis, and did pottery.

While doing that I also worked, dealt with a car that threw a piston, changed my oil, and took care of my own children.

It was a whirlwind, but a lot of fun.

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Finished up the Handmaids Tale, by Margaret Atwood. It was o.k. I enjoyed reading it, but it didn’t live up to the hype. It was creepy, but I sometimes felt like the reader was being strung along by the author. By strung along I mean the following; sometimes there are details missing initially, which are not available until later in the text, even though it seems awkward and unnatural that they aren’t included until later. I liked the theme of what happens when people and/or government become perverted into very strange entities sometimes with very good motivations. I liked the theme of power and subservience. The sex scene still creeps me out when I think about it. It doesn’t replace George Orwell’s, 1984 as far as I am concerned. It doesn’t even come close. Perhaps I just didn’t like the style and pacing. The end was a really unique twist on the age old, “I found this diary in the attic” meme.

I give it three of five stars. I enjoyed reading it. I am glad I borrowed it instead of buying it. I don’t think I would read it again unless there were no other books.

It might make for a good movie.

We went to the Forest Lake July 4th Parade. It was everything a good small town parade should be. Red, white and blue was displayed everywhere. Flags were in good supply, candy was flying everywhere.

I love a good jingoistic Independance Day Parade. I love how people stand up and take their hats off when the color gaurd goes past. I love the people throwing candy to the kids. I love the antique cars, and the VFW’s, a Kiwanis clubs. It is quintessential americana.

More photo’s in the extended entry.

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Happy 4th of July!

I probably won’t blog tommorow, so I thought I would start celebrating early.

I am phenomenally glad to be an American. Here’s to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I for one am glad to not be a subject of the crown.

Hopefully next year will see a society with greater freedoms. Among the freedoms I would like to see restored are the following.

• Freedom to travel without showing my papers.
• 
  Freedom to read, without Big Brother snooping over my shoulder.
• Freedom from secret courts and secret warrants, and military tribunals for U.S. citizens.
• Freedom from corporate greed by placing works in the public domain afer a limited time.

So Happy Independance Day! Do yourself a favor, read your U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independance and State Constitution. See what the country was meant to be.

Robert McCloskey, 88, author of “Make Way For Ducklings” died yesterday. (As I famously said when Eugene Ionesco died, “I didn’t know he was alive.”)

Wherever you are Robert, I hope Clancy is holding traffic for you while you cross over the street.

I am doing some brainstorming about life in a high tech company. While I have a lot of source material from a previous employer, I am on the lookout for more.

A couple of rules.

• Don’t tell me a story you would feel irritated about me fictionalizing.
• Don’t tell me things that would make me party to a crime.

This is purely for reseach purposes at this time. You can contribute by email or by commenting on the blog.

Anything is fair game, ghosts in the lab, projects that were cancelled, employee hijinks, CEO indescretions …

O.K., I saw two more summer movies over the weekend. Here are my thoughts.

THe Hulk, although I saw this movie as a matinee for $5.00, I felt like I paid $4.00 too much to see it. The story was overly strained and complicated. The effects weren’t that good and the it seemed cartoony. Yeah, I know imagine my disbelief that a cartoon character is “cartoony.” Well anyway, 1 out of 4 stars. The one star is mainly for the high quality of the seats and air conditioning at my local theater.

Charlies Angels. What was i thinking? I enjoyed this movie. The kung fu and gadgetry was so camp and ridiculous it was almost a parody. I enjoyed it for the goofy, fun, summer movie that it was. If you are looking for an academic seminar on feminism in the early 21st century keep moving.