"Snowmaggeddon" and "Snowpocalypse"

"Snowmaggeddon" as the President called it, and others "Snowpocalypse" in D.C. appropriate after the Presidents visit to Copenhagen.
Just Wondering what this does for the global warming data.

record event report
National Weather Service Baltimore MD/Washington DC
630 PM Sat Feb 06 2010

... Preliminary indications of two-day storm snowfall record exceeded
at Baltimore/Washington international Thurgood Marshall Airport...

At 4:54 PM EST this afternoon... a 24.8 inch two-day storm total
snowfall was estimated at Baltimore/Washington international
Thurgood Marshall Airport.

Preliminary indications are that this 24.8 inch two-day storm total
snowfall exceeds the previous two-day storm total snowfall record of
24.4 inches from 16-17 February 2003.

As with any major climate record achievement... this preliminary
record amount will be quality controlled by noaa's National climatic
data center over the next several weeks.

Nimbus look and feel

Nimbus has been out for a while now. It has some great features. But why isn't it being used more?

Nimbus is the name of a look-and-feel designed by Sun for the Java Desktop System. It provides a great alternative for the Windows look and feel. But it provides more than that. It has a collection of features that allow developers to customize the look and feel of their products. Nimbus provides the ability to put custom skins on your product to help brand your product.

This is how is does that. All painting for components is done with simple stateless implementations of the Painter interface. These painters are stored in the UIDefaults table so they can be replaced if you would like to change the look of components or can be used in your own components if you would like to create a custom table header for example that looks the same as the standard Nimbus one plus something extra. All colors, icons and fonts are derived off UIDefaults keys so the whole UI can be customized by changing values in the UIDefaults tabl
All of the colors, fonts, icons, borders and painters are exposed through the UIDefaults table which means they are available to your 3rd party components to help you skin them in a Nimbus style.

So why isn't it being used more often given the amount of time that it has been out? There are two main reasons.
The first reason is the default file browser. Basically it is short. What this means to the user is that they have to scroll over all the time to be able to find anything in a directory of folder that has more than a handful of items in it. This is a rather annoying feature that would discourage any developer familiar with usability. So many developers will put their application look and feel back to the good old favorites hat they are familiar with.

The second reason is that the text objects all have the feature (or bug depending on point of view) that don't work as expected. The more troubling of these is the foreground, background, and highlighting behavior. Another reason for most developers to give up on Nimbus.
At present the best way to deal with this is a work around. The work around is basically to use set the text back to the old style handling.

To check to see if Nimbus is present and enable Nimbus if it is and then set the text panes so that they have the expected behavior you can use the following:
(Note: This example includes the text object decleration but this is usually done somewhere else in the IDE GUI build e.g. Netbeans

for (LookAndFeelInfo info : UIManager.getInstalledLookAndFeels()) {
if ("Nimbus".equals(info.getName())) {
try {
UIManager.setLookAndFeel(info.getClassName());
} catch (ClassNotFoundException ex) {
// your exception handling
} catch (InstantiationException ex) {
// your exception handling
} catch (IllegalAccessException ex) {
// your exception handling
} catch (UnsupportedLookAndFeelException ex) {
// your exception handling
}
break;
}
}

// this is usually done somewhere else in the IDE GUI build e.g. Netbeans
javax.swing.JTextPane DocViewTextPane = new javax.swing.JTextPane();

// set text pane so it will behave as expected.
DocViewTextPane.setUI(new javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicEditorPaneUI());



Netbeans, Eclipse and Oracle Sun

Image via CrunchBase

What will happen to Netbeans with the Oracle acquisition of Sun? Once the merger happens I think it will become obvious surprisingly quickly.

Netbeans is the number one competition to Eclipse which is of course owned by IBM. With that said and the number one alternative to Eclipse, Oracle may go full guns on adoption and of course lots of new capabilities and features Netbeans would be available in short order. That would be my guess. One more straw to grasp from IBM.

On the other hand, Oracle also purchased BEA Weblogic which uses Eclipse as its IDE. That would mean a substantial cost to convert, as well as some alienation by developers un-wanting to make the switch to a new IDE no matter whose it was.

Yes there are all those other IDE's that Oracle also owns. But how far have they gone, not far. But Netbeans is a competitor.

You can read from developer comment to developer comment (only counting ones that have actually used current versions of both) I use Eclipse at work, because I have to, but I prefer and use Netbeans for personal projects. Yes I to have fallen into this category.

Why do I like Netbeans better? Its not a reason commonly given. The interaction with CM is much better! I have seen many numbers of my development team mangle or loose checkins, commits, and all sorts of other misshapes in Eclipse when dealing with CM repositories. To me that is loss productivity, and development costs. But that is a side issue to the article.

I think Oracle will be good for Netbeans as a serious competition to yet another IBM product. IBM the only commercial competitor to Oracles core business line.

MySQL and Oracle and the EC

Image via Wikipedia

The review by the European Commission of the Oracle Sun merger just got a whole lot more interesting with the activities of one of the founders of MySQL. Michael "Monty" Widenius, the creator of MySQL stepped into the fray opposing the take over, delivering over 10,000 signature to the EC of those opposed.

I highly recommend reading Monty's blog at http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2009/12/help-saving-mysql.html

If you have code running on MySQL let the EC know just how much competition to Oracle there really is.

Regarding Sun's drop in 25% drop in revenue, just compare that to automotive and housing. But even more, compare that to the same industry. Among the top five server vendors, Dell was hit hardest, with quarterly server revenue tumbling 31.2 percent. Hewlett-Packard showed a 26.2 percent decline. Sun Microsystems watched its revenue dive 25 percent. IBM saw its sales drop 19.9 percent. Sales at Fujitsu/Fujitsu-Siemens fell 18.8 percent. Claims about merger uncertainty effecting sales seems to be way out of proportion.

2 feet of Global Warming

Image via Wikipedia

With the record snowfall of 2 feet here in the Washington D.C. area I have developed my plan to help fight global warming and stimulate the economy. I am going to buy a snow blower before that big snowstorm in the mid west gets here.

I came up with this plan as I was shoveling the 2 feet of snow of my driveway and thinking about Copenhagen conference and Climategate. As I was shoveling I watch one of my neighbors taking her dog out for a walk. It was obvious I could blame her, yes apparently dogs put out 2.5 time the amount of CO2 than my SUV.

• Are Dogs Worse for Environment Than SUVs? (abcnews.go.com)

"We should always be suspicious of computer models, for while they look impressive, they may very well be constructed on mathematical models that the programmer assumes, but which may not be the ones that nature uses."

Java Examples

Image via Wikipedia

Ever Google to figure out how to do something in java. Its always fun.
Try Googling:
file recursion java
you will get: Results 1 - 10 of about 886,000 for file recursion java

A typical java subject search gives you everything you already know but not the one thing you need. You will get snippets of code. And often you will get Q/A threads asking how to do the same thing you are searching for with no reply. And you will see, copy after copy of it.

For those that found this page looking for java file recursion:

package blogsamples;

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.logging.Level;
import java.util.logging.Logger;

/**
 * File Recursioin example
 */
public class RecursiveFileListing {

    /**
     * @param args the command line arguments
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        listAllFiles(new File(args[0]));
    }
    public static void listAllFiles(File dir) {
        // if it is a directory get the contents.
        if (dir.isDirectory()) {
            String[] children = dir.list();
            for (int i = 0; i < children.length; i++) {
                // call itself
                listAllFiles(new File(dir,children[i]));
            }
        } else {
            // if it is a file print out the file.
            try {
                System.out.println(dir.getCanonicalPath());
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                Logger.getLogger(RecursiveFileListing.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
            }
        }
    }
}

Global Warming Climate Hoax

You may want to re-evaluate where you are investing if you are into technology companies which are strongly tied to climate change technologies.

Yep Global Warming seems to be a hoax, or at least lots of the data is apparently faked, highly filtered and not standing up to direct review of the data (assuming that News about the hoax has even reached the New York Times.


While it may be possible for to ignore outlets such as Fox news, and talk shows on the subject when the articles about the financial impacts start appearing in the Wall Street Journal that is starting to have impact to investors. If that is enough to get your attention, then the lawyers that are lining up to filing suits should. There are suites against NASA Goddard, CRU and others in the works. Most of these have the freedom of information acts as opening salvo's, but it gets much worse than that.

At the heart of all this is what is meant by peer review. Problem appears to be who the "peers" are is a stacked deck. Appears that Phil Jones of the CRU and his colleague Michael Mann of Penn State where controlling who the peers are, and disallowing anyone not of like "opinion." To bad no one has access to the data for independent review, or at least till now. And it seems the warming is do to the books being cooked. To quote Mr Mann from his email "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board." In other words, keep dissent out of the respected journals. When that fails, redefine what constitutes a respected journal to exclude any that publish inconvenient views. For those not familiar these are the groups responsible for the IPCC which is the U.N. To bad such notables as Freeman Dyson , Fred Singer, Ian Plimar, John Coleman, John Christy, Richard Lindzen, Henk Tennekes, and others are not considered peers. (A good summary of who all these experts are and their views is here.)


If you believe or not believe in global warming after this, you should still pay attention to the impact of the controversy on Cap and Trade Bill technology investments. It is very big business and huge impact to wealth redistribution if their is global warming. And climatologist are in a lot less demand if not.

If you can't make up your mind, go with energy technology that would still have value even without global warming, it will still have value it there is.

European Commision and Oracle

Not looking so good for Oracle-Sun merger. The EC issued it's statement of objections, a formal sheet spelling out its concerns, to the merger. EC has to rule by mid-January whether it will clear or block the deal. The EC's deputy director general for mergers and antitrust, said at a Washington antitrust conference that no final decision had been made on the deal, and confirmed that the commission's key concern centered on Sun's open-source MySQL database software and its potential combination with software sold by Oracle.

A quick look at the MySQL case studies will show why Oracle would not want to give it up. Telephone companies (specially European ones), cable companies, craigslist, Yahoo, Ticketmaster are some of the more notable.

4G and 3G

Image via Wikipedia

ATT is suing Verizon over 3G maps in Verizon adds. While most Americans don't know what 3G the wireless companies are all promising to have 4G next year.
For reference, 3G gives digital cellular technology is supposed to provide bandwidth: up to 384K bit/sec when a device is stationary or moving at pedestrian speed, 128K bit/sec in a car, and 2M bit/sec in fixed applications.. 4G is supposed to go to 100Mbps and let your battery last longer. Well at least if you believe the literature.
But to transition back to here and now. iPhone is available through ATT which is a bummer if you like the iPhone but have Verizon, Sprint or any other competitor. But you can get the Driod for Verizon at places like Best Buy.
But hey "Hey there is an app for that" or there is if you start developing your 4G app now.

CO2 a pollutant?

If CO2 is bad why do I want to buy products like this for my aquarium? Answer: To encourage plant growth and vitality.

This is also why greenhouse growers routinely inject the exhaust gases from their fossil-fuel or wood-fired heaters into the greenhouse to enhance growth.

Actually, CO2 depletion is what will kill life as we know it on this planet. Over the ages the amount of CO2 has been declining. Not only coal and oil and shale but also limestone and marble are all made from CO2 taken out of the air.

Practically all plants today first appeared when CO2 levels were about 5 times today’s levels. As CO2 drops due to things such as the erosion of the Himalayas, plants become less and less healthy. At some points the species that are less efficient at using CO2 become less healthy and their populations begin to dwindle. Species that are more efficient, take over which is why deciduous trees have replaced conifers in a good part of the world. Deciduous trees drop their leaves on the ground in winter and these decay creating additional CO2 for the trees during the next growing season.

As CO2 levels drop further, plants begin to die off and over a period, more and more would go extinct. As the plants die off, the animals that depend on them (that would include people) also begin to die off and eventually you have a long, slow, mass extinction event.

CO2 is not harmful at today’s levels in the environment. In fact, it will invigorate plant life and make for a healthier environment for the animals that depend on those plants.

It is not surprising that plants prefer higher CO2 levels than the present levels. CO2 has been much higher for most of the history of life than it is today. See the following graph ( based on carbon dating from rock, ice samples etc. detailed in http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Reference_Docs/Geocarb_III-Berner.pdf ) of global temperature and CO2 levels for the past 600 million years. Note that during the Cambrian, when large life-forms first evolved, CO2 was at 7,000 ppm, nearly 20 times present levels. Note, To the consternation of global warming proponents, the Late Ordovician Period was also an Ice Age while at the same time CO2 concentrations then were nearly 12 times higher than today-- 4400 ppm

NLP and Gender

Image via Wikipedia

There are a number of papers written on the concept of using Natural Language Processing (NLP) of written text for determining gender. One of the better known papers is by Moshe Koppel and Shlomo Argamon "Gender, Genre, and Writing Style in Formal Written Texts". These works presume that the choice of words specific to gender. In their paper they site findings that women are far more likely than men to use personal pronouns ("I", "you", "she", etc), whereas men prefer words that identify or determine nouns ("a", "the", "that") or that quantify them ("one", "two", "more"). According to Moshe Koppel, one of the authors of the project, this is because women are more comfortable thinking about people and relationships, whereas men prefer thinking about things. (For speech there are all sorts of additional ques that can be picked up on, such pitch, intonation etc.)
You can test this idea at the Gender Genie at: http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php
The concept of gender can be extended to Alpha-male type behavior, to submissive roles.
They can be extended to other types of roles, such as leader or follower, teacher or student.

Assuming that there are linguistic correlation between such roles, then there should also exist the possibilities of other linguistic correlations such as veracity (truthfulness), strength in negations. A lie detector, for example measures the correlation between biological response to veracity. A gamblers ability to read (detect and correlate) an opponents behavioral changes of a bluff can have a dramatic effect on the outcome of a poker game.

There is a difference between causal and correlation that should when evaluating the usefulness of such tools. For example, a sociopath on a lie detector. The measure of the correlation is not a measure of causal relationship. The causes underlying the correlation, if any, may be indirect and unknown, and high correlations also overlap with identity relations, where no causal process exists. For example the cause of the gender correlation may be more related to measure of alpha behavior than sex. Even if the cause is not understood if there is a strong correlation then usefulness/trustfulness of the information obtained from the analysis can be of greater value.

EU and the Oracle Sun merger

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The US press seems to be baffled why the the European Commission would be more concerned about open source effect on the Oracle purchase of Sun than the US Justice Department. Well that is simple, Europe has more readily adopted the use of open source. And oh yes, were did MySQL get its start? Sweden.

Yesterday (Sept 21) The EU asked Oracle competitors in the 10-page questionnaire to what extent the company could “influence/control/steer the reaction and development of the MySQL community” as the owner of a proprietary version of the software.

Oracle is the world’s largest maker of database software. MySQL is the most popular open-source database, meaning its software is freely available as a download to customers.

The questionnaire is part of the commission’s in-depth review of the deal that began on Sept. 3. Oracle Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison said yesterday that Sun is losing about $100 million a month as the transaction is delayed by the EU probe. Mr Ellison said that Oracle and MySQL did not compete against each other, and said he would not sell off MySQL to get the deal approved.

Not compete? How many trade studies for which data base to use have I done? More than I can possibly remember. So they all went like this. Will the end costumer except open source, then are they an DB2 (IBM) or Oracle DB. ... And then why the opposition to sell?

And why else would the EC care? And readers of this article. Open source software development is relevant to investment research because it reduces the research and development expense of the publicly traded companies that make use of it. Companies in the EU are much more invested in such technologies, and would be hit harder if it disappears from the market.

And then there is java, Glassfish, Open ESB (open source equivalent to the recently acquired BEA) ..., but MySQL would be a bit more obvious competition to understand.

Smart Phones, Net Books, Ultrathins and Laptops.

As battery improve, CPU power increases, what is the future of staying connected? Which device should you choose. (or invest in)?

The answer to this question is becoming less a matter of technology, but more a matter of what your needs are. Do you need to stay connected while out and about. Do you need to web access while shopping. Can you type with your thumbs or one finger? How fast do you need to inter data, or ask for information? How small of a screen can you live with.

Why can't device manufactures get it right. What I really want is something more like an I-Pod. A pocket sized device while I am running around, jogging, etc. That will doc to my laptop base while I am visiting clients, so that I have a nice large keyboard, and large screen. Of course I then want to plug that into my home or office docking station with the wireless keyboard, surround sound, and excessively large monitor, and game joystick. All so that my data is always with me, on what I am using.

Other than the initial lower cost, I can't figure out why anyone really wants a netbook. The key boards are to small to type on (at least for me), and it won't fit into my pockets. I can't help but notice that if you buy an older laptop that about equals the price of a new netbook. When they first came out laptops where a lot heavier and pretty expensive. They did provide lightweight mobility. But now firmly bracketing netbooks are Ultrathins and Cliq.

The Cliq, which was just announced last Thursday, is a step closer to that vision. But it still not what I really want so until that time, I'll continue using my simple phone..... which is beeping to say it is out of battery, just like this laptop.... Maybe I will take a closer look at the Cliq.

"Consensus is more important than perfection”

Image via Wikipedia

As a technologist, of coarse I can't agree with this quote.

"Consensus is more important than perfection,”is a quote from the new Manufacturing Czar, Ron Bloom. While at the USW Bloom says that the USWA still believes that the Canadian system works better and is the best way to deliver health care.

Bloom indicated that the Steelworkers union has begun to talk with its employers about the need for a comprehensive approach to health care in this country.

Obama anouncing Ron Bloom as manufacturing czar on labor day at the AFL-CIO picnic is an intersting move. Both the Steelworkers and the Autoworkers are sensitive to the relationship of health care to the issue of competitiveness.

In September of 2002, the Canadian divisions of General Motors, Ford, and Daimler Chrysler signed a letter together with the Canadian Auto Workers urging that Canada’s national health care system be “preserved and renewed”.

The letter goes on to explain that Canada’s publicly funded health care system provides much of the Canadian auto industry’s competitive advantage over the U.S.

At that time while Bloom was with the Steelworkers union stated he sees health care as a trade issue. He explains that employers in the U.S. are paying the freight for health care while their competition in other countries has publicly financed health care. He believes that large companies with stable, high wage employees will move to see that it is in their economic self interest to move toward a publicly funded program.

Ron Bloom has been involved in many complex union negotiations, especially over the formation of union-run trust funds to oversee retiree health care, a key issue for Detroit's automakers and the UAW.

In 2005, Bloom's former investment banking firm, Lazard Ltd., was retained by the UAW to review GM's finances when the automaker was seeking concessions on health care costs.

So is this shadow support for Obama Health care (via the unions), or union support, or manufacturing, or industry?

Technology? Ron Blooms past seems to be a series of union negotiations that seems to be an impediment to technology advancement by solely supporting union shops. This move seems likely to be more forced unionism, less American competitiveness, more job losses, and ultimately more bankruptcies and taxpayer-funded bailouts of corruptly run union pension plans.

Note: Obama's Ron Bloom is different from the entrepreneur Ron Bloom of Podshow Mevio who has a much more positive view for developing technology and business.