Praise be!
MSNBC is reporting this hour that the judge hearing the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board case has ruled that Intelligent Design is not science.
I think Doonesbury's strip last Sunday put the case into perspective quite nicely.
Tell me: would it be an appropriate response to the neo-Creationists to demand that we preach evolution in their pulpits? Just wondering.
Update: Full story from the New York Times (reg.req.)
Teran Loeppke, Boycott Organizer at UNITE HERE Local 1 in Chicago, sent us this information about the picket line at the Congress Hotel on South Michigan Avenue. As UNITE HERE says,
Workers at the Congress Plaza Hotel have been on strike since June 2003, after hotel owners cut wages and benefits. Hundreds of customers complained of poor service and hazardous and unsanitary conditions. Dozens of groups and conferences have moved or canceled their events after learning of the strike. Yet, the Congress still refuses to inform individual customers of the strike. Chicago visitors are not allowed to make an informed decision about having to cross the picket line or risk compromised service.
Here's Teran's comment and photo:
I just wanted you to see this wonderful moment we had in Chicago last Thursday at the Congress Hotel—our boycott rally and picket led by the strikers and the Alliance for Justice at the Congress Hotel.
For more information about the strike, or to find out how you can support hotel workers in Chicago, contact Clare Fauke at +1 (312) 663-4373 ext. 247 or read about it on the Web.
There's a lot going on this week as Anne and I prepare for the holidays. I expect to have some really interesting things to report soon. But I don't have them yet.
I will say, -18°C (-2°F) is really quite cold.
One thing of interest: Apparently there's a storm off the Pacific Coast that's generating some heavy surf. I'll be in Carmel, Calif., the day after tomorrow. I hope to have some photos of really big waves by Thursday.
Late addition, 26 March 2006: We have a dynamic version of this in beta over at http://beta.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.
Last week, I posted a short chart of how sunsets are getting later. Today, because I wanted to know for myself, and therefore I can't imagine anyone else not wanting to know also, I've figured out when certain sunrises and sunsets will occur for the next year.
Here is the chart for Evanston, Illinois:
Date |
Significance |
Sunrise |
Sunset |
Daylight |
21 Dec |
Solstice, 18:35 UTC |
07:16 |
16:22 |
9:06 |
30 Dec |
Latest sunrises start |
07:19 |
16:28 |
9:09 |
8 Jan |
Sunrises get earlier |
07:18 |
16:37 |
9:18 |
28 Jan |
5pm sunset |
07:07 |
17:00 |
9:53 |
4 Feb |
7am sunrise |
07:00 |
17:09 |
10:09 |
20 Feb |
5:30pm sunset |
06:41 |
17:31 |
10:50 |
27 Feb |
6:30am sunrise |
06:30 |
17:39 |
11:09 |
17 Mar |
12-hour day |
06:00 |
18:00 |
12:00 |
1 Apr |
Earliest sunrise until May 12th Earliest sunset until Oct 11th |
05:34 |
18:17 |
12:43 |
2 Apr |
Daylight savings time begins |
06:33 |
19:18 |
12:45 |
4 Apr |
6:30am sunrise (again) |
06:29 |
19:21 |
12:51 |
12 Apr |
7:30pm sunset |
06:16 |
19:30 |
13:13 |
22 Apr |
6am sunrise |
06:00 |
19:41 |
13:40 |
10 May |
8pm sunset |
05:36 |
20:01 |
14:24 |
16 May |
5:30am sunrise |
05:30 |
20:07 |
14:36 |
9 Jun |
Earliest sunrises start |
05:15 |
20:27 |
15:11 |
16 Jun |
8:30pm sunset |
05:15 |
20:30 |
15:14 |
21 Jun |
Solstice, 12:26 UTC; but sunrises get later |
05:16 |
20:31 |
15:15 |
23 Jun |
Latest sunsets start |
05:16 |
20:32 |
15:15 |
1 Jul |
Sunsets get later |
05:19 |
20:31 |
15:12 |
6 Jul |
8:30pm sunset |
05:22 |
20:30 |
15:08 |
16 Jul |
5:30am sunrise |
05:30 |
20:25 |
14:55 |
9 Aug |
8pm sunset |
05:54 |
19:59 |
14:05 |
16 Aug |
6am sunrise |
06:00 |
19:51 |
13:50 |
9 Aug |
7:30pm sunset |
06:14 |
19:30 |
13:16 |
14 Sep |
6:30am sunrise |
06:30 |
19:03 |
12:32 |
16 Sep |
7pm sunset |
06:33 |
19:00 |
12:27 |
25 Sep |
12-hour day |
06:42 |
18:43 |
12:01 |
3 Oct |
6:30pm sunset |
06:51 |
18:30 |
11:39 |
12 Oct |
7am sunrise |
07:01 |
18:15 |
11:14 |
22 Oct |
6pm sunset |
07:12 |
18:00 |
10:47 |
28 Oct |
Latest sunrise until Dec 26th Latest sunset until Mar 9th |
07:19 |
17:51 |
10:31 |
29 Oct |
Standard time returns Earliest sunrise until Mar 6th |
06:21 |
16:49 |
10:28 |
6 Nov |
6:30am sunrise (again) |
06:31 |
16:39 |
10:08 |
15 Nov |
4:30pm sunset |
06:42 |
16:30 |
09:48 |
1 Dec |
7am sunrise |
07:00 |
16:21 |
09:20 |
3 Dec |
Earliest sunsets start |
07:02 |
16:20 |
9:18 |
15 Dec |
Sunsets get later |
07:13 |
16:21 |
9:07 |
21 Dec |
Solstice, 00:22 (Dec 22) UTC |
07:16 |
16:23 |
9:06 |
You can get sunrise information for your location at wx-now.com.
Four stories from past week (two of them today) sadden all of us who love American democracy.
First, and most importantly, the President revealed today that he authorized secret surveillance of Americans because of—wait for it—9/11:
"This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power, under our laws and Constitution, to protect them and their civil liberties and that is exactly what I will continue to do as long as I am president of the United States," Bush said.
So, he authorized violating our laws and Constitution, compromising our civil liberties, "under our laws and Constitution, to protect [our] civil liberties" then? Is he channeling Nixon? If so, maybe he'll end his presidency the same way. One can hope, anyway.
Notice, by the way, that he dropped this bombshell on Saturday morning, when people are listening to Wait Wait! Don't tell me instead of reading actual newspapers. This tactic is described in The West Wing episode "Take Out the Trash Day," which has special poingiancy this morning.
Second and third, former Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire died Thursday at the age of 90, and former Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy died last Saturday at age 89.
And finally, Emmy-winning West Wing star John Spencer also died, at 58. (Photo: NBC)
For a couple of years, Inner Drive has
had a webcam pointing
out the window. We've moved twice since the webcam first went online. From time
to time, we've adjusted the webcam slightly. And, every so often, the webcam adjusts
itself.
For example, the first cam image is from when we left the office last night, and
the second from when I woke up this morning:

(The images are displayed at half-size, but you can view them at full-size by saving
them from your browser. You'll notice that they have timestamps, which are in Universal
time.)
The poor webcam was lying on the floor of the office covered by the box upon which
it had previously sat. See how it sits precariously in this photo? Imagine it now
in a heap under the chair by the window.

So, since we had to move it anyway, we decided to rotate it south 90 degrees, to
this angle:

For those interested in history, here is what the image looked like yesterday during
the day, and at 6, 12, and 18 months ago, respectively:


And finally, here is what the Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters looked like
in October 2004 and October 2003:

(Yes, the image on the right is of my living room.)
Note: I didn't realize when I started this post that today is the second
anniversary of the Webcam. As a special bonus, here is the very first Inner Drive
Cam picture ever, from 17 December 2003 at 1:28 pm CST (19:28 UTC):

The San Francisco Chronicle today ran a long-overdue correction:
A story Nov. 15 about mathematical references on "The Simpsons" TV show mistakenly said that 1,782 to the 12th power plus 1,841 to the 12th power equals 1,922 to the 12th power. Actually, 1,782 to the 12th power plus 1,841 to the 12th power equals 2,541,210,258,614,589,176,288,669,958,142,428,526,657, while 1,922 to the 12th power equals 2,541,210,259,314,801,410,819,278,649,643,651,567,616.
(Linked from today's Romanesko. In the "Anne" category because she actually does know this kind of thing.)
I've finally added an explanation of Evolutionary Delivery to my corporate site. I wrote this as part of a proposal to a client in September, and for reasons that passeth understanding, I neglected to publish it online.
By the way, I write software for a living, so if you're reading this and realize you need a small, agile development team for a .NET project, send
us a message.
A code smell happens when a piece of software code looks like there might
be something wrong with it, but you can't quite tell what. You use the smell to
figure out where the bad code is hiding. Martin
Fowler has devotes an entire chapter of
Refactoring to code smells.
Here is an example, from a class that returns configuration information:
public string Read() { ... }
public double ReadD() { ... }
public int ReadN() { ... }
public string ReadString() { ... }
What's wrong with this code? Several things:
- It does the same thing four times.
- Having two similar methods that appear to return exactly the same data raises a
red flag, because you don't know from looking at them why they differ but you feel
like they differ for a reason.
- Despite the code's appearance, it actually offers no guarantee that the data requested
will be of the correct type, only that the data will have a particular type.
- if some random piece of code requires a data type it doesn't support, you'll have
to add yet another method to the class, or change the returned data to suit what
you need, neither of which makes a lot of sense.
This code came from an ancient, functional-procedural outlook in which the type
of data returned actually matters. Object-oriented design cares more about what
the data represents. In other words, this code is like multiple different filler
tubes on your car, one for each grade of gasoline.
There's more. A little farther on, we find these methods:
public int ReadArray(string, ref String[]) { ... }
public int ReadArray(string, ref int[]) { ... }
public int ReadIntArray(string, ref ArrayList) { ... }
In all, there are 14 "Readtype" methods on this class, some that
return the data sought, others that return a status indication and pass the data
back through a by ref parameter.
And, of course, since this is in a fundamental class, none of these methods has
fewer than 5 references to it in the application, and some (like ReadN) have
34, making refactoring unusually difficult. I'll post again when I figure out how
I'm going to do that.
Addendum to my previous reading list.
I'm now reading Microsoft's Framework Design Guidelines
, written by the guys who wrote the .NET Framework.
Add this to my list of recommended books.