Apple is Doomed

Hey! Don't let reality fool you. APPLE IS DOOMED!

Plus One for Hen*Plus

I had a need for an command line SQL interface for Oracle yesterday, but didn't want to dirty my shiny new Ubuntu workstation with Oracle's extremely crappy SQLPlus. Seriously Oracle, could you bring your crappy CLI into the 90's?

Anyway, that's when I discovered Hen*Plus (written by Henner Zeller, hence the play on words to get Hen*Plus). Its a great little Java program that provides power users (or really anybody not brain dead) a command line interface into Oracle or nearly any other database with a JDBC driver. And it has hooks with for libreadline, so it works great on Linux. I highly recommend it. Of course, I highly recommend anything that makes Oracle suck less... and there's a lot of room there for that type of thing.

If you are an Ubuntu user, you can get Hen*Plus with apt-get (apt-get install henplus), but be forewarned that the current Ubuntu version is way broken. The fix is easy. Get the 0.9.8 source (or later) from the link above, build it using Ant (ant jar in the directory where you untar the source). Then take the henplus.jar in the build sub-directory and copy that over the henplus.jar in /usr/share/henplus.

A Whole Mess o' Glue And Some Toothpicks

This might possibly be the coolest thing you'll see today: One man, 100,000 toothpicks, and 35 years: An incredible kinetic sculpture of San Francisco.

Be sure to check out the video of the ping-pong balls rolling through the city tours.

Would You Hire a Fed?

We have a slot open for a programmer, and I've been getting resumes lately. The vast majority are crap. And I've found myself adverse to considering resumes of people with nothing but Federal government contracting experience. All of these types of resumes seem to have the same structure where each contracting post is littered with programming buzzwords and domain specific acronyms that nobody outside that .gov agency even recognizes. I read these things thinking, "Wow! If listing acronyms were the job you'd be great. To bad I want a programmer instead."

So, would you hire a guy with nothing but .gov experience for a staff hot-shot programmer position?

Bamian

You can either look up the definition in Wikipedia, or if you are in the DC area you can do better and eat there. Since moving to the DC area oh those many years ago, I've found that I rather like Indian, Pakistani, and Afghani cuisine. And Bamian satisfies that quite well. I'm not sure how long it has been there, but on the way back from REI Saturday evening, my wife and I saw it and decided to give it a try. Glad we did.


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My wife was excited that they had sauteed pumpkin with yogurt, so we tried some of that with their kabob sampler. That was a good move. We also ordered some aushak and sambosas. The aushak was tasty though not as meat filled as I have had at other Afghan restaurants. The sambosas were very light and some of the best I've ever had. They brought out some mint dipping sauce for the sambosas, but once devoured I used the dipping sauce for everything I could tear apart and dip.

My five year old daughter isn't as adventurous and wanted to stick with the kids meal, which was a burger and fries. However, I must say what she got was not some afterthought menu item. She downed the whole thing, which is highly unusual for her. And I have to admit, I downed a couple of her fries.

There was also a musician there playing live music. But it wasn't loud or intrusive. He was playing various soft and soothing melodies very appropriate for fine dining. He had an electric violin, which I thought was pretty cool.

A Couple Of Interesting Tech Surveys

Both from CNET:

Most Android users 'hate Apple'

Mac users more educated, less Harley-loving

I'll let you decide which camp you fall into.

The Best Ruby IDE On The Market

... is on sale for $49 until April 30 as an Easter special.

And another thing about the best Ruby IDE on the market... it's written in Java.

Apple Stuff

Just random things I've read this morning regarding those Apple iOS products:

ESR lets slip that his "iPhone V" sales predictions were wrong, and that Verizon has sold 2.2 million units in 60 days. He still goes on to predict the death of Apple, because hating on The Jobsian Society is in vogue. BTW, though he keeps calling it the "iPhone V", the version of the iPhone sold by Verizon is the iPhone 4.

And regarding the kerfuffle about location data being cached in the iPhone: look, a program to read cached location data in Android. Wait, what?

Finally, John Gruber hits one out of the park regarding iPad competitors and the press. Had Apple released half-assed tablets the press would have been apoplectic about it, but Motorola and RIM get passes with things that are obviously broken.

Apple Is Doomed

Because, how in the world can any multi-billion dollar tech company that nearly doubled its profits from this time last year survive? If only their iPhone 5 had been a success!

Are You a Beer Snob?

Because if you are, you too can get in on the ground floor of some beer snobbery: EmbraceBeer.

I'm often called a beer snob because I like to drink beer that tastes better than horse piss, but I don't consider myself a beer snob because I know some real beer snobs (see above link).

That being said, I did throw a coffee mug full of coffee across the room this morning when I discovered the reason I am having a hard time finding McHenry is that Clipper City brewing has discontinued it.

The Narrowest Building in Europe

So narrow, that Marcos walked by it and didn't take notice. I guess television shows for children can be educational for people of all ages.

What Happened to all the Java Hate?

Looking over the Northern Virginia Software Symposium 2011 sessions, it would seem there are two languages that repeatedly show up, Java and Javascript.... almost like we went back 5 years in time. So where did all the Java hate go? Or was there a lot of wising up about the viability of functional programming in the mainstream (i.e. learning the lessons of the '80s).

A Sandstorm in Germany?

When I first saw the headline Sandstorm causes 80-car pileup, 8 dead, my first thought was "A sandstorm in Germany?" Is this another one of those weird German departures from reality? But watch the video. Its a  sandstorm.

Does Javascript Suck Or What?

Or is Web Object Encryption and Signing (WOES) really about something else? Because while I am certainly in the camp that ASN.1 sucks and PKIX has some unnecessarily complicated warts, the argument for WOES seems to be centered on the fact that it is nearly impossible to write an ASN.1 DER coder/decoder in Javascipt.

I truly do sympathize with creating signed objects in the web browser, because we had to do just that sort of thing on one of our projects at work. Unlike draft-rescorla-jsms, we opted for a format even simpler than JSON. And we did that specifically because of the threat mentioned here: a user simply cannot trust Javascript ASN.1/crypto code streaming from a server to sign an object on the users behalf. So we implemented a Javascript in-browser signing method, and we implemented a method which allows a security-aware person the ability to sign an object with about 10 lines of bash scripting, OpenSSL, and cut & paste.

There are also a lot of unanswered threats left hanging with WOES, and it is not hard to see the effort turning out to be "PKIX for JSON" to address them all. Not to mention that any large effort to recreate PKIX will end up with its own scope creep warts... one of which has already manifested: the necessity to have signed objects in 1024 character (byte) URLs. I'm sorry, that just seems like a truly unnecessary corner case. And the option of not addressing threats seems to be anathema for a person who ponders the threat models of hotel check-out procedures.

Thomas Roessler has what I believe to be the best approach of all, creating a Javascript API for CMS and X.509 gobblty gook. Web browsers already have ANS.1 DER engines and X.509 understanding so that they can do HTTPS, why can't that simply be extended for CMS with a Javascript API? The counter argument that it would take years for such an API to make it to the desktop seems to ignore the fact that it would also take years to ratify a PKIX for JSON infrastructure and that the File API needed for getting a users private key is only available on cutting edge browsers today. The other counter argument that not all WOES applications will have access to a web browser brings me back to my first question, "Is WOES really about something else?"

Instant Background Checks

Former co-worker and apparently one of the two readers of this blog, Kueblacan, sent me a link to a posting by John Lott at Big Journalism over Media Matter's distortions regarding instant background checks for gun purchases. Interesting stats and worth the read.

I don't actually know the genesis of the spat between Lott and Media Matters, but it is easy to guess Media Matters is probably parroting the latest Brady/Bloomberg/Goddard talking points on background checks at gun shows, and that Lott called them on some bad stats. This much I do know: with all the stats and studies out there, no compelling evidence exists regarding gun show private sales being a serious conduit for firearms turning up in the hands of prohibited persons. My own experience with gun shows is that a criminal would have to be outright stupid to try to obtain a gun that way given the number of uniformed police and undercover ATF and state police that run around at those things.... that and the overwhelming number of sales are conducted through FFLs who will run a background check on you.

That being said, I'm not totally against requiring background checks for private sales. But there would have to be a couple of stipulations:

1. There is no fee placed upon either the buyer or the seller.
2. The background checks must be for firearms sales only.
3. All state and local police must provide the checks at any precinct, courthouse, station, or barracks that are generally open to the public, and the checks must be done upon demand during typical business hours and typical evening and weekend retail hours.
4. FFLs may also conduct the checks, but they are to be paid $15 per check by the ATF or FBI.
5. All forms and paperwork must be destroyed immediately after the check has concluded, and both the seller and buyer have the right to witness the destruction of said paperwork. For FFLs, no form 4473 shall be required nor kept.

I'm going to bet that these stipulations will not be found to be acceptable by anti-gun activists as their aim is to make gun ownership as onerous as possible... and these stipulations are obviously designed to be convenient to buyers and sellers.

More Praha

I'm back now from the IETF in Prague. Posting was light last week because I was on another continent and also because I had a cold the entire time I was there. So life was not exactly fun. That being said, my boss dragged me out of the hotel Friday afternoon to the Prague Castle since the conference was basically over.

Looking up at the impressive cathedral that is part of the Prague Castle complex.

I'm glad he did. The Prague castle was interesting. Here's the bit from Wikipedia about it:

Prague Castle (Czech: Pražský hrad, Czech pronunciation: [ˈpraʃskiː ˈɦrat]) is a castle in Prague where the Kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman Emperors and presidents of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have had their offices. The Bohemian Crown Jewels are kept here.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Prague Castle is the largest coherent castle complex in the world with an area of almost 70000 m², being 570 meters in length and an average of about 130 meters wide.[1]

In other words, not your typical castle. Of course, for Americans there is no such thing as a typical castle.

Inside the cathedral, the afternoon sun cast a very colorful scene through the stained glass windows.

One of the bell towers was open to the public for the low, low price of 100 kr. Of course, that meant climbing a very long, long, long spiral stair case. But once at the top, all of Prague was clearly visible.

Prague as seen from the top of one of the bell towers.

From there we walked around more of the castle complex.

The back side of the cathedral.

One of the many buildings making up the castle complex.

Looking down over a wall on the "old stairs" which lead up to Prague Castle. We guessed that the buildings below were consulates and embassies of other countries.

After touring the castle, we walked back down to the town, crossed the river, and found a meal at one of the many reasonably priced cafes with sidewalk seating.

The much deserved beverage rewarded to us for all the walking.

All the walking around and the much deserved beer was suppose to lead to an early turn-in so that I could wake at 3:00am to catch a cab to the airport at 3:45am to be there at 4:15am to board a plane at 5:30am leaving for Frankfurt at 6:00am. The sleep part of that plan didn't work out so great, but I did end up in Frankfurt at 7:00am the next morning.

Morning breaks over FRA.

Tired as I was, when they loaded us off the plane in Frankfurt on to one of the busses, I snapped this picture of daybreak at FRA. I thought the contrails and the planes coming and going with the sun rise were interesting.

All pictures, both in this post and the previous, were taken with an iPhone 3GS.

Praha

A view of the city from the top of the Hilton Prague.

Posts have been light this week because I've been in Prague, CZ, since Saturday. And I have been busier with work related items than I thought I would be. We did get out some a bit on Sunday but it was cloudy and overcast at that time. However, today we managed to get out again for a little souvenir shopping.

The clock church.

The clocks of the church, apparently a popular backdrop for wedding photos.

A statue inside the church.

In typical fashion, the old churches of Europe are very spectacular on the inside.

One of the many pedestrian squares in the city center of Prague.