A matter of minutes … wow. If my boss had not been able to make the flight, I would have had to give a 15 minute talk at the conference I am attending. Fortunately, he made the flight.
I took a walk to the place where I might have been presenting, wow. Yeah. That room was HUGE. It could hold 400 people easy. Yikes.
Giving a chat on something that I am an expert on and for which I have prepared is one challenge in itself. Talking on something you only saw not even a day before hand … epic.
I just spent the last few minutes doing a jig around the empty and somewhat dark office this fine Saturday morning. I bet you are wondering what the HECK that looks like, arn’t ya! It is a rare moment, reserved for when SHIT WORKS (well, more or less works, and more or less on the first, or second shot). It looks like our company won’t be embarrased come next week after all. *giggle* Damn, celebration time. Where’s the office wine when you need it!
I guess you wouldn’t understand unless you are a programmer. In our world, you usually have to FIGHT with the code to make it do what you want. It’s a one on one with you and some complex abstract entity which has some sinister and evil logic which tries to trip you up at every moment. However, sometimes stuff just WORKS. Dang. Sometimes, if you want it done right, you DON’T have to do it yourself. Dang.
One more little software engineer ancedote. Last week I was attempting to secure a DCGS web service. That’s a rather large military application. I get to the customer site, and I find out that there is not a usable client to call the web service with. So, I make my own … on the spot … when my boss was watching over my shoulder. I had to hack the WSDL in order for the code generation to complete, but I got it done. Talk about a clutch play with the clock winding down in the 4th quarter. I wanted to do a jig right there in the lab, but that would have been unprofessional. Instead I made some off-the-cuff remark about ‘Bonus time!’ Well, the boss was there and … took that remark seriously. Yup, I got a raise. Can you believe that? Moments of success under pressure are rare, and even rarer when someone gets to see it. Nearly unheard of when the boss is standing over your shoulder. If that same situation had happend at BAE Systems, I might have gotten a pen … maybe. Perhaps a 3.6 percent raise instead of 3.4 percent, at the end of the year.
A while ago I pondered the pace of home sales in San Diego when I looked around and I could hardly see any first time buyers. I concluded that the sales were driven by existing homeowners selling to existing homeowners.
Let’s think about this for a minute. Please bear with me as I blog while I think… Suppose that we assume that the median price is 100 billion dollars (muahaaaa), while the average income is only 60,000 dollars. Let us assume that everyone in a house has their home paid for. In such a market, when homeowners need to move, they have to sell to a homeowner who wants to live where they are currently living. Not a hard thing to do.
Because the home prices are so huge and the incomes too small, homeowners can only trade downward, and not upward. In this situation, people can only buy/sell to people who have a house of similar value. People who want a smaller/cheaper house can’t sell because they need someone able to buy their current home.
This goes on for a while, and people start to die off from a disease known only to affect lemmings. What happens to these houses? Ownership passes to family members, as there are no new buyers to buy the newly available house.
So far, no major problems, other than the fact that there is no upward and downward mobility.
Bingo!!!! I have a new theory, well, new to me at least. The removal of the first time buyer to go with home prices not justified by wages, hinders the mobility of the homeowners! Think of this next time you hear about a home deal that went through because someone couldn’t qualify for a loan.
Finally, a bit of a breather after working 12 hour days trying to get stuff working for in installation tomorrow.
So, just a few words …
I was at my boss’s house last week for dinner (a good dinner at that!). They have this really cool house designed like a castle. Very nice! The noteworthy thing was that I appreciated the design of the house, but I didn’t particularly want it. I thought that was strange because it’s exactly the type of house I WOULD want. *sniff*, I want apartment in Manitou back!!!!
I need to make a certain open source developer write this 1000 times on a chalk board. Thanks to this monkey, I spent the better part of 2 hours trying to figure out why things were breaking that shouldn’t be.
NEVER, NEVER do string comparisons with java using the == sign!!!!!!!!!
I’ve taken those Java programmer tests, and there is usually a section on String.intern() and string comparisions with ==. I always get them wrong because only flippin morons use them.
End Rant
It’s been a long time since I’ve been part of a Christian community.
Now I find that I don’t like them anymore.
Linkin Park recently released a new album after a 4 year span between releases. During that time they have re-invented themselves, and I think I like it. To be sure, I’m going to miss the old Linkin Park, but the new guys are solid as well.
I was going to write a whole review, but really all I have is disjointed thoughts. Plus, my own review on a band like this would simply cast a spotlight on my own soul. Haha.
Instead, I’ll just say that it’s a worthy album. It doesn’t sound at all like their past albums so it something you should hear before you buy. Lyrically, it still very dark melancholic, but now there are some political overtones. One of the verses had me busting up in laughter:
risk something
take back what’s yours
say something that you know they might attack you for
cause I’m sick of being treated like I have before
like it’s stupid standing for what I’m standing for
like this wars really just a different brand of war
like it doesn’t cater to the rich and abandon the poor
like they understand you from the back of the jet
when you can’t put gas in your tank
and these f____ are laughing their way to the bank
caching the check asking you to have compassion
have respect for a leader so nervous in an obvious way
stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay
and the rest of the world watching at the end of the day
in their room laughing like
what did he say?
Hands Held High - Linkin Park
You go to wal-mart to pick up some cheap imported goods. You pay in US Dollars. Wal-Mart purchased those good from the supplier in the same US Dollars. The supplier now has US Dollars from the transaction. Because business is good, a large portion of that money gets invested. Because the United States has the most stable government and financial system, it is a logical choice for many overseas investors. Some of that money goes into US Corporations via stock purchases, and some of that money goes into purchasing debt, aka bonds.
Bonds have interest rates. The interest rate is determined by supply and demand. The more buyers/demand for the bonds, the lower the interest rate. The bond investor needs to make sure that the interest rate for the bond he/she buys is higher than the expected rate of inflation. Additionally, the risk of default needs to be considered. What if the issuer of the bond isn’t around to pay you back? Oooops.
The US Treasury note is a particular type of bond that is issued by the government. Of particular interest is the 10 year treasury. There has been a lot of demand for the 10 year treasury, which has driven rates down over the years. Again, keep in mind that much of that demand is from foreign buyers. The 10 year treasury is the basis for the 30 year fixed rate mortgage on your home. The prevailing mortgage rates have a huge impact on the price of real estate as it controls the amount of debt a person can afford to carry. Over the years, interest rates have dropped and we have had a real estate boom. Increasing real estate values increases the equity for existing homeowners. Many of these owners have taken loans against this equity to purchase more goods - much of them imported.
So, what have we learned? If you want to be prosperous, then you need to buy more imported goods? No. That would be a fallacious conclusion. My point is that people think of China as some sort of evil. The fact is that China/Asia is awash in US Dollars and they are a major purchaser of US debt. They are largely responsible for low interest rates on your home mortgage, and the corresponding increase in your home value. Think of that next time you go to wal-mart, target, ikea, home depot, or watch TV, listen to music … etc. Pretty much anything you use as a consumer is designed here in the US and manufactured outside the US. There are some notable exceptions, however. One such exception is your car. Most cars sold here in the US are made here.
I find that knowing something about macroeconomics helps give a better perspective on how the world works. When you hear the negative press about China, keep in mind that many of the problems that we have economically with China had their roots here in the US. Something to consider next time you look into a mirror.
Of course, China really IS evil, but more from the standpoint of their style of government. There is way to much repression, and censorship, to go with a supreme lack of representation of the people.
As a new employee of Jericho Systems, one of the tasks I have been given is to participate in the XACML Interoperability demonstration that takes place at the Burton conference later this month.
As any software programmer knows, there is a certain amount of challenge in delivering a product at the same time as you learn a new code base. When I started at BAE Systems, I was placed on the PTW (Precision Targeting Workstation) program. DANG, what a mess of spaghetti code if I ever saw one. It took a while to be able to navigate that mess without breaking a bazillion other things. That was not the case for the code belonging to my new company, Jericho Systems. I was able to get new functionality up and running pretty quickly for the interop. What a nice code base!
Not all of us become the men we hope to be. Sadly, it is the case for me as well. I have accomplished many of the things I set out to accomplish, and yet at the end I am not the person I had envisioned.
I’d like to think that my life is a tragedy, but that’s just an overblown romanticized notion. The sooner I kick that notion, the better.