Recently in Editorials Category

I was at dinner with a few people some months ago when we got to talking politics.  Rather than discuss the people and the issues though, we ended up talking about the process by which people select candidates to favor.  One of the people said that his mother always picked her candidate not by reading about their position on issues or their history but instead by asking her friends who they are voting for.  We joked that this person's mother is simply using collaborative filtering to get a good recommendation.  Then we asked the question:  Why isn't this process automated?  Now it is -  The Election Recommender.  We originally had only joked about using celebrity endorsements but the results have been very interesting so far.  If you're satisfied just trying out the site, go ahead, otherwise read on for a more detailed explanation.

For years I've had a theory about teleportation that has only recently been brought to mass attention by the movie The Prestige.  Many films have been made about the topic and I'm sure some lesser-known films have covered the idea of copy and kill but not as well as this film.  With such a wide reach across the world, I'm happy that many people are able to see the issue with this concept.  If you think I'm just being a paranoid sci-fi nut, think again because this technology is being actively researched with some success and may actually manifest itself in a human-usable way in the future.

After having read the article about a new USPS surcharge that could cut into Netflix's profits I got to thinking about the future of movie rentals.  If you're a Netflix customer and haven't tried their streaming video service, I recommend you give it a shot.  I've noticed the weak selection of titles available on it and can only imagine that it must be a licensing issue with the MPAA or specific rights-holder.  While I enjoy their online video-watching service, I don't enjoy watching movies on my laptop as much as on my TV and I also don't enjoy having to plug my laptop into my TV.  There is a feasible solution for all of this covering concerns like licensing agreements (giving consumers better selection) to proper television integration (no more laptops plugged into the TV.)  Read on to find out how I see a successful movie rental business operating in the near future.

Remember a time when there weren't ads before movies?  It used to be that people were excited just for the previews and previews were all you got.  Times were simpler then.  People actually showed up early to see previews because previews were considered a perk of going to the theater.  After paying $10 per seat and the same for refreshments, most people expect a certain level of comfort and service for their money.  The TV-style ads have been annoying to say the least but recently I hit a new limit.  

Wikipedia defines polymorphism as "the ability of objects belonging to different types to respond to method calls of the same name, each one according to an appropriate type-specific behavior."  There is nothing too fancy about polymorphism other than it's name.  All it means in layman' s terms is that you can define some common behavior for multiple types of objects and have a common codebase which may or may not care about the different variations on a type.  A good analogy would be the biological taxonomy system.  You may remember this from high school.  It has Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus and Species.  If we were to model all living things according to their taxonomy, then we could have software which behaves much like a dog kennel.  The dog kennel takes domesticated dogs.  There are many specific breeds of dogs but the kennel knows that any domesticated 4 legged dog will do and will be compatible with their kennel.  We could say this dog is polymorphic in a way.  Not only is it a domesticated dog, but it's a carnivorous canine which is an animal.  Does our software support all animals?  Maybe.  If so, this dog would work there too.

Object Oriented (OO) languages are a staple of the development community, however many people continue to argue against them, citing that they are inefficient, useless, confusing and unnecessary.  There are many real benefits to using OO even for very small projects.  It does require a different mode of thinking though to convert from a purely procedural environment into an OO one.  In this article I will show some of the values added by implementing using OO designs and what is saved in the long run.

It's the end of October and the 2007/2008 snowboarding and skiing season is right around the corner!  I'm very excited for this year and to prepare, I've decided to get some new outer clothes before it starts to snow and the prices shoot up. I also had a look at some of the new snowboard offerings from Burton, amongst others, who is pushing the boundaries of rational purchasing with their new $1000 Vapor model.  I'm not in the market for a new board this year but I thought I'd share some of my findings for stylish jackets and pants for both men and women.

I've configured and maintained over 100 UNIX-based servers over the years starting with Slackware Linux 2.0 back in 1995.  Over all course of all the deployments I've become very biased about my operating systems.  Linux clearly has a solid lead with desktop applications, but for server deployments and maintainability, I believe firmly in FreeBSD.

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Many people, in their quest for a new vocation, have asked me how I've managed to land a successful software development career without proper academic background or training. While I feel like I've known how to write software my whole life, there are some key steps I took to overcoming obstacles, learning new languages, understanding new concepts and building a portfolio capable of landing you in a new career.

Are you looking for something new and exciting to try this summer? Have you ever thought about trying skydiving out? It's safer than you may think. Up until last year I had always wanted to try it but never could get myself to commit. It was on my list of life-long to-dos, and after deciding that now is as good a time as any other, I made my first jump. I found it to be a very unique, thrilling experience that I look forward to doing again. Here's how to finally make it happen: