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Relationships
Published on 2012-09-27 11:05:58
I have not posted about this, because I usually don’t post personal things here. However, this year the long-term (10+ years) relationship I was in came to an end. With that context, here’s a learning experience I did not expect: Be in a long-term relationship. During that time, learn to be progressively more open with [...]
Open Source, Free Software & Fanaticism
Published on 2012-06-12 06:33:02
So, Eric S. Raymond posted about Richard Stallman, and my first thought was “who cares about ESR these days?”. Then I thought “oh, wow, this could become a nice flamewar”. Then I went and read the article. Yeah, I’m cynical like that. It turns out ESR makes a few great points. Basically he states that [...]
Epic Medical Failure
Published on 2012-03-30 12:33:58
I got together with my wife in early 2002. In mid- to later 2002, she started suffering from digestive problems. She got treated, got a little better, got worse, other things were diagnosed, she got treated, she got a little better, she got worse. It’s been ten years now. I’m sure in the meantime, some [...]
ACTA & Copyright
Published on 2012-03-24 07:18:54
The German news1 are currently dominated by a verbal battle between proponents and opponents of ACTA. For the uninitiated: ACTA is an attempt to put stricter legislation on the internet, in order for content providers (music/film industry) to better fight piracy. In this debate, proponents of ACTA love to label any opponent as a pirate, [...]
Introversion, Productivity & Work Environments
Published on 2012-03-16 06:04:03
Let me start this post with a video: Unless you understand introversion very well, please watch the video before proceeding with this post. I have been an introvert all my life. I’m not necessarily the most extreme introvert, in that I am quite capable of dealing with large crowds, speaking publicly, and all the sorts [...]
Domain Specific Languages & Turing Completeness
Published on 2012-01-09 06:34:01
I don’t know if it’s been said before1, so in case it hasn’t, I’ll say it: Every domain specific language converges towards Turing completeness over it’s lifetime. The reason for this observation is that I’ve recently come in contact with a number of new DSLs2, which exhibit the same problem I’ve seen with other DLSs [...]
Best Tool for the Job
Published on 2012-01-01 15:52:47
I thought I’d start the new year not with a boring (or not so boring) retrospective. I’d also like to avoid a post conveying my best wishes, but of course, I do wish you all a happy new year. Instead I’d like to write a short post about an old adage and it’s (mis-)use in [...]
ContentProvider Wasted Potential
Published on 2011-12-01 11:49:36
This is only a short post in the series, and the aim is to let off some steam on the wasted potential in ContentProvider. I love ContentProviders. They’re the same sort of thing as a virtual filesystem layer (VFS): an interface, that lets people come up with ingenious ways of using it. When it comes [...]
Phone Screen Size & Usability
Published on 2011-11-27 08:55:42
In my previous post I observed that the screen size of the new Galaxy Nexus phone is such that usability suffers. To back up and illustrate that statement, I’ve decided to shoot short demo videos. But first, let’s examine how we can hold and use touch screen mobile phones in general. In the first image [...]
Galaxy Nexus / Ice Cream Sandwich First Impressions
Published on 2011-11-27 06:32:04
For my job, I ordered the new Google Galaxy Nexus phone a few days ago, and yesterday it finally arrived. After having used the Nexus One as my main phone for years, I knew there’d be a big difference in the phones. But of course, the Galaxy Nexus is also the first phone to ship [...]
How Science Works
Published on 2011-11-10 15:18:43
Recently, I found myself in a discussion around science, religion, and whether or not god exists. It was fun. But I was slightly frustrated by it, too, because the person I was talking to demonstrated a slight misunderstanding on how science works, what science, in effect, is, that to me is at the heart of [...]
Dennis Ritchie & Steve Jobs
Published on 2011-10-13 05:40:07
I haven’t commented on the sad death of Steve Jobs before, but now that I found out Dennis Ritchie (dmr) has also passed away, I’m thinking this week marks such tragic losses to computer science/the computing industry that something needs to be said. Thing is, I find myself a bit too stunned for words. Steve [...]
Software Craftsmanship
Published on 2011-10-11 03:56:11
A friend just sent me a link to the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto, a manifesto of values to uphold when crafting software. As I’ve often lamented the common mistakes people make in the software industry, you’d think I’d love that manifesto. As a matter of fact, I saw it a few years ago and decided, after [...]
Standing Desk: Aftermat(h)
Published on 2011-10-10 08:28:40
Ah, the punnery! I decided to revive the series on my standing desk experiences with a very brief update. First, some have asked me whether I still work standing up, and the answer is: yes! It’s been about three months since I started, and I’ve not had any inclination to stop. More importantly, though, I [...]
Dependency Management & Versioning
Published on 2011-09-22 08:43:40
As you can see from my previous rant on dependency management, one aspect that will rear it’s head in any dependency management solution is that of version numbers. Branding One of the things that’s not immediately obvious is that version numbers mean different things to different people. In particular, the version number you, the user, [...]
ContentProvider Curses Cursor
Published on 2011-07-04 08:57:54
If you’ve developed Android apps, chances are you’ve written some Activity that displays a list of stuff. If you’ve done that, chances are, you’ve filled the list with data from a database cursor. If you’ve done that, ch
Google+
Published on 2011-06-30 08:05:21
I’ve just been invited to Google+, Google’s attempt at kicking Facebook off it’s throne. We’ll see whether that happens or not. If you know me, you’ll know that I’m not a Facebook user1. I never got into it, never
Android Permission Handling
Published on 2011-06-18 09:03:06
Android includes a system for granting permissions that’s quite flexible and great in many ways. In other ways, it’s terrible. Let me run you through that. Access Control Basics When we’re talking about permissions, it makes sense t
In Flames is Pop Music
Published on 2011-06-17 06:20:03
… I keep saying it. People don’t want to hear it. So here, finally, is some proof: Getting a bigger banner than the fucking Beatles is pretty much the definition of pop.
Ubuntu vs. End-Users
Published on 2011-06-14 06:51:20
I’ve recently switched to working with GNU/Linux for most of my time, more specifically the excellent Ubuntu distribution. A few glitches aside, I’m really quite happy with the daily user experience. And user experience is the key word he
Encryption on Android & BouncyCastle
Published on 2011-06-12 06:28:22
If you’ve tried to encrypt stuff in an Android app, you may have noticed that not all phones support all encryption algorithms. And that’s particularly sad when the algorithm in question is AES, the Advanced Encryption Standard. So what d
Programming Language Design
Published on 2011-05-23 08:04:16
One of the things that strikes me is how different programming languages are, not necessarily in the way they look, but in the way they require you to use them. In some sense, this is no surprise, of course, so I better clarify. Many if not most prog
Bitcoin & Computational Complexity
Published on 2011-05-20 11:31:10
Well, I’m lying. This blog post isn’t really about bitcoin. It’s just inspired by a lot of discussions about bitcoin I’ve had recently, which is inspired by the recent spade of attention the project received. So let me start w
Alternative Vote: What’s The Problem?
Published on 2011-04-18 06:05:50
Much is being made in UK media these days about the upcoming referendum on whether to introduce the alternative vote system instead of the current first past the post system for voting MPs. For the purposes of this post, I don’t care whether or
Android Jittery Scrolling Gallery
Published on 2011-04-17 15:34:37
Recently I had a problem with an Android app in which I used a Gallery to scroll horizontally between some items. It worked pretty well, but all of a sudden, without changing the Gallery code at all, it started to jitter weirdly when I scrolled the G
I don’t always test my code…
Published on 2011-04-13 11:21:57
Android Intent Sender Verification
Published on 2011-04-10 12:42:26
Following up on the Intent theme from the previous post, here’s another tidbit about Intents: apparently you cannot reliably tell where an Intent is being sent from. Intents can be launched in various ways: Intents can be broadcast to any recei
URI Matching in Android’s IntentFilters
Published on 2011-04-08 09:04:51
If you’ve done any work on Android that involves integrating apps, you’ll have come across the concept of IntentFilters, too. Put simply, IntentFilters are a means to specify which intents an app’s Activity responds to, so that Andr
I Feel Special Today…
Published on 2011-04-02 05:06:34
… because I showed up in game credits for the first time in my life. Here‘s the game in question.
Parents against URI Shortener Rape
Published on 2011-03-30 06:04:17
It’s to be expected, I guess. When you try to generate short IDs from alphanumeric characters, you’ll inevitable form words, sooner or later. I just didn’t expect the word “rape” to turn up in a link. At least it’s
Data Layout & Performance
Published on 2011-03-27 10:39:56
After unwisely getting myself involved in a discussion on /., I figure that I’ve actually got a topic I can go into some depth about. It’s all about how the way you lay out data in memory affects performance, especially but not exclusivel
Unprofessional Documentation
Published on 2011-03-23 07:07:04
Apple has one glaring omission in its API documentation for developers: memory management is covered truly, abysmally badly, to the point that it’s just terribly unprofessional. Here’s an example I was shown today: - (void) beginR
Skype 5 Usability Fail
Published on 2011-03-14 17:09:01
So, I bit the bullet and upgraded to Skype 5.0 from my now admittedly dated 2.8 Mac version today. I wish I hadn’t! Actually, I’m glad that I know people who haven’t, who sent me an old version again to downgrade to. Two things are
App Store Economies
Published on 2011-03-12 11:09:29
Before I start writing about economies and/or economics, let me put up a HUGE disclaimer: I don’t actually know what I’m talking about. That is, I have no training in economics whatsoever. What this post is based on is observation and thi
C vs. C++ Flamewar
Published on 2011-03-10 09:48:55
Once in a while, the age-old flamewar about whether C or C++ is the superiour programming language flares up again. It’s a patently and obviously silly discussion, which is why I’ve gone to the trouble of illustrating it’s stupidity
Regressive Lion: Mac OS X
Published on 2011-03-04 07:45:36
Sometimes I feel like I should have called this blog “Hulk SMASH!”. I just caught up with the changes Apple is introducing into it Mac OS X Lion. Amongst them, we find this gem: One major change Apple’s made in Lion is that running
MMORPG Design Principles
Published on 2011-03-03 09:53:40
For a while now, I’ve been ranting about one aspect or another of MMORPGs (and other games) that I dislike, to anyone who would listen. Time to formalize that into a small post. Let’s start with the premise that games are supposed to be f
Gawker Fail
Published on 2011-02-28 18:01:49
A lot of fuss has been kicked up over the recent redesign of the Gawker websites. After readers protested, Gawker backpedalled a bit, but the changes they’ve now implemented are few and far between. Who ever came up with this design needs to ha
Tabular Spectacular
Published on 2011-02-26 07:24:39
Yesterdays article about data sources and tables did not come out of nowhere. I’ve had to deal with various issues with tables and filling them from network sources, on the one hand. On the other hand, friends of mine are working on a cross pla
Force Gingerbread Upgrade on Nexus
Published on 2011-02-25 14:14:45
First, look at these instructions. Next, consider this table: Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread for Nexus One Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread for Nexus S That is all.
Tables and Data Sources
Published on 2011-02-25 12:54:22
One of the many things that annoy the crap out of me when programming iOS is feeding UITableView with data. Android makes things a little better with its ListView or rather the ListAdapter class, but that includes its own set of problems. This post,
Dragon Age 2
Published on 2011-02-24 06:29:20
People pointed me to this video about the upcoming sequel to Dragon Age: Origins, a game I thoroughly enjoyed despite my bitching about it. I’d heard a bit about changes BioWare wanted to make to the second instalment, and didn’t like wha
Mobile App Development Time
Published on 2011-02-23 09:42:02
The following is from a draft from 2010-09-29. It’s not particularly insightful, which is probably why I never hit the “publish” button. At the same time, it’s just interesting enough to me that this rule of thumb appears to a
Uncharted: No Racism Here, Move Along Now!
Published on 2011-02-20 17:35:36
The last few weeks, if I’ve been playing any game at all, it’s been Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Yes, I play games late. I recall that when I played the first instalment, there were no trophies on the PS3 yet; the trophies for Uncharted ca
Old News: Google Killing The Web
Published on 2011-02-17 06:20:54
A few days or weeks ago, Gawker Media changed their websites’ layout to a fully dynamic, AJAXified … thing. For what it’s worth, I share the opinion expressed in Penny Arcade’s cartoon comment on the design change. But that
Dell Streak AudioRecord
Published on 2011-02-02 07:41:31
If you’re recording audio on Android, you might have found a problem with the Dell Streak. Seems that audio data it produces via AudioRecord is “chipmunk’d”, i.e. sped up and high pitched. The thing is, the Streak appears to r
Dell Streak AudioRecord
Published on 2011-02-02 07:41:31
If you’re recording audio on Android, you might have found a problem with the Dell Streak. Seems that audio data it produces via AudioRecord is “chipmunk’d”, i.e. sped up and high pitched. The thing is, the Streak appears to r
Religious Bigotry
Published on 2011-01-18 07:52:31
Two incidents in the recent past have got me very annoyed at christian bigotry. First, a while ago the pope urged Pakistan to repeal it’s blasphemy law, on the grounds that it condones injustice against religious minorities, i.e. christians. I&
Religious Bigotry
Published on 2011-01-18 07:52:31
Two incidents in the recent past have got me very annoyed at christian bigotry. First, a while ago the pope urged Pakistan to repeal it’s blasphemy law, on the grounds that it condones injustice against religious minorities, i.e. christians. I&
Anti-SPAM Measures
Published on 2010-12-28 18:27:08
If you’re a sysop, the following is likely not exactly news to you. I blogged quite a while ago about how my SPAM volume varied. Recently, I’ve had cause to move my email server, and consequently implemented my SPAM filtering a bit differ
Anti-SPAM Measures
Published on 2010-12-28 18:27:08
If you’re a sysop, the following is likely not exactly news to you. I blogged quite a while ago about how my SPAM volume varied. Recently, I’ve had cause to move my email server, and consequently implemented my SPAM filtering a bit differ
Wikileaks
Published on 2010-12-09 05:55:30
So, the Wikileaks story… I haven’t wanted to comment. Julian Assange may or may not be guilty of rape. It depends on your definition of what rape is. Only a court case — or, I suspect, a series thereof — can bring clarity, so
Wikileaks
Published on 2010-12-09 05:55:30
So, the Wikileaks story… I haven’t wanted to comment. Julian Assange may or may not be guilty of rape. It depends on your definition of what rape is. Only a court case — or, I suspect, a series thereof — can bring clarity, so
LOVEFILM on the PS3
Published on 2010-11-11 04:51:53
This morning I found an email from LOVEFILM in my inbox saying that their service was now available on the PS3. I rushed to the living room to try it out. My verdict? Meh. There’s two reasons for my lack of excitement about the service, and it&
LOVEFILM on the PS3
Published on 2010-11-11 04:51:53
This morning I found an email from LOVEFILM in my inbox saying that their service was now available on the PS3. I rushed to the living room to try it out. My verdict? Meh. There’s two reasons for my lack of excitement about the service, and it&
Germany Shocked by ‘Disproportionate’ Police Action in Stuttgart
Published on 2010-10-01 11:17:08
From German magazine Spiegel Online: Around 600 police used water cannon, tear gas, pepper spray and batons in an operation against over 1,000 demonstrators in the southwestern city of Stuttgart on Thursday. The activists had tried to use a sit-down
Germany Shocked by ‘Disproportionate’ Police Action in Stuttgart
Published on 2010-10-01 11:17:08
From German magazine Spiegel Online: Around 600 police used water cannon, tear gas, pepper spray and batons in an operation against over 1,000 demonstrators in the southwestern city of Stuttgart on Thursday. The activists had tried to use a sit-down
80/20 Rule in Software Development Revisited
Published on 2010-09-30 06:44:41
You know that pesky 80/20 rule in software development, right? It seems almost inavoidable, huh? The original 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle, states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. When applied to software development, people u
80/20 Rule in Software Development Revisited
Published on 2010-09-30 06:44:41
You know that pesky 80/20 rule in software development, right? It seems almost inavoidable, huh? The original 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle, states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. When applied to software development, people u
Matthias Rath: Steal This Chapter
Published on 2010-09-20 10:39:01
I rarely get speechless these days. Maybe I’m getting a bit cynical. But this addendum to the book Bad Science has left me speechless. I urge you to read it.
Matthias Rath: Steal This Chapter
Published on 2010-09-20 10:39:01
I rarely get speechless these days. Maybe I’m getting a bit cynical. But this addendum to the book Bad Science has left me speechless. I urge you to read it. This is original content from un|we|sen, licensed under a Creative Commons
Rails Routing is Broken
Published on 2010-09-07 10:49:37
So, after having worked with Ruby on Rails for a few weeks, I can now safely say that it doesn’t live up to the hype. Yes it does some things very nicely, which I appreciate. But it also does some things very, very badly. Now if you read this b
Rails Routing is Broken
Published on 2010-09-07 10:49:37
This article is part 1 of 1 in the series Railings on Derailed RailsSo, after having worked with Ruby on Rails for a few weeks, I can now safely say that it doesn’t live up to the hype. Yes it does some things very nicely, which I appreciate. B
Blast from the Past: Joost
Published on 2010-08-24 05:21:53
Not that long ago, granted. But I can’t help but think it’s worthwhile reminding people that Hulu grew in the fertile soil that Joost created1. This list of videos we produced at Joost at some point or another is far from complete. But he
Blast from the Past: Joost
Published on 2010-08-24 05:21:53
Not that long ago, granted. But I can’t help but think it’s worthwhile reminding people that Hulu grew in the fertile soil that Joost created1.
This list of videos we produced at Joost at some point or another is far from complete. B