Super Hero Hot

Martin, at dinner tonight: "This pizza is super hero hot!"

Uncle Bob on SE Radio

Episode 150 of Software Engineering Radio has a fantasic interview with Robert Martin on software craftsmanship. How do good professional developers do their work, and how do they learn how to do it well?

James Castle

Before lunch today I visited the Art Institute and wandered into an exhibition of works by James Castle. I had never heard of Castle. He was born around 1900 and spent his life in rural Idaho. He was presumably deaf, probably autistic. He never learned to read or write but communicated through his art - mostly drawings and "books". At first everything seemed ridiculously primitive, but then it became eerily fascinating. It was a surprisingly rewarding collection.

Radio Deluxe in iTunes

I moved my Radio Deluxe RSS feed to Google App Engine, so I'm no longer dependent on a scheduled job on my home computer to update the feed. And other people can use it now too. To get Radio Deluxe in iTunes or another podcast program, point it to:

http://fampollock.appspot.com/radiodeluxe.xml

In iTunes, select Advanced / Subscribe to Podcast, and then paste in the above address.

I wanted something to do to try out GAE and this seemed like a good project. Couldn't find my old source code (time to get Git running at home) so I started over. First I tried creating a JSP, and that was a nightmare. It seems like GAE doesn't like JSP documents that create XML. Switched to brute force. Used a big, nasty regular expression to pick out the episode information from the Pizzarelli web site.

Now that it works I might try converting it to Scala and see how that runs on GAE.

Linus and Lucy and Monk

If you slow down "Linus and Lucy" it sounds a lot like Thelonious Monk. Maria is downstairs, slowly playing the solo in the middle of "Linus and Lucy" from some sheet music, and it is reminding me a lot of "Ugly Beauty".

Air Piano

Unlike air guitar, this is a real instrument.

No More Green Neccos

Necco Wafers go natural, and the green wafers are no more.

Paper Towels

Where I work, there are paper towel dispensers in the washrooms. Every day I cringe as my co-workers step up to one and whip out three, four, five towel sheets in rapid fire. Fwvwhoop Fwvwhoop Fwvwhoop Fwvwhoop Fwvwhoop! Then they clap their hands together a couple times and deposit the 90% unused mass of paper in the trash (usually - that's a separate rant for another day).

I'm no bleeding heart tree hugger but I hate inefficiency and waste. If you commonly find yourself in washrooms with paper towels, I beg you to try this: Take one sheet. One. Use the !@#$ out of it. It will be thoroughly soaked, and your hands, if they're at all like mine, will be about 80% dry. OK, take one more sheet. The second sheet will completely dry your hands. Grand total: Two sheets. Hands: completely dry. Thank you.

Fred Hersch

The highlight of the summer so far has to be seeing Fred Hersch play at the Vancouver Jazz Festival. We expected to see Hersch play last year at the 92nd Street Y, but he was ill and cancelled that appearance.

On a fantastic five-day trip to the Pacific Northwest, we ventured across the border for one amazing evening. Neither Maria nor I had ever been to Vancouver. After a few days in Seattle, we were surprised at how dense the city was. Traffic was chaotic, but we managed to find our hotel, L'Hermitage, which was fabulous--and, as we later discovered, is on the same block as the concert venue! We wandered around the central downtown area, did some shopping, and discovered Blenz Coffee. After a superlative al fresco dinner at Cin Cin, we returned to the Centre for the Performing Arts for the concert. Hersch and the rest of his trio opened the show. His playing is so remarkably, melodically beautiful I just started weeping like a little girl. I was so overcome that I don't remember details of the show as I normally would. Maria and I agreed it was absolutely worth travelling many hundreds of miles to hear him play, and we will probably do it again.

Also on the bill was Kenny Werner, with a fantastic group including Randy Brecker and Antonio Sanchez. And they were great, but I couldn't enjoy them as well because I was so emotionally spent after seeing Hersch play. I will make a point to go hear Werner again sometime.

List Time

1. Martin is into our Dora the Explorer DVD. Tonight he has told me several times, "Gate! Bridge! FIESTA!!"
2. Bike the Drive was windy this year. Props to Mom and Cyn for joining us. Next year 30 miles!
3. February has two R's in it. It's pronounced "feb-roo-ary" not "feb-yoo-ary". As much as you want it to, it does not rhyme with January. Now get it right.
4. Dug Security Now last week. I'm looking forward to getting my grubby little hands on my copy of The Geek Atlas. And a shout out to Leo for mentioning The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, a truly excellent book.
5. Ella had a piano recital last weekend and did very well. Her playing has improved quite a lot this past year.
6. The Hannah's Club at Hannahs Bretzel is possibly the best sandwich ever. I confess I succumbed to this guilty pleasure again today.

I Need Socks

I was sitting downstairs on the sofa on Saturday afternoon. Martin noticed my bare feet and decided I needed socks. He went upstairs to our bedroom, got a pair of socks from my drawer, and brought them downstairs to me.

Brad Mehldau

Maria and I saw Brad Mehldau play at Symphony Center last week. We’ve seen him play many times now. I’ve been a big fan for years. Maria was originally put off by his contortions, but now she is coming around.

Mehldau’s trio played the first half of the show. The sound was muddy. The piano had to be amplified to compete with the bass and drums, but it was uneven, loud enough but unclear in the midrange, and lacking in the lows and highs. Maria and I wondered if Mehldau had directed the sound engineer to go for an acoustic sound that was ultimately impossible in that room. The trio played well, but I’m not yet won over by Jeff Ballard on the drums. I got accustomed to Jorge Rossy in that trio, and I still miss him.

After the break, Mehldau played solo. The sound was a huge improvement over the first half. The piano was unamplified, and they lowered the reflective panels above the stage. Mehldau played five or six songs in each half of the program. A favorite of mine was the second song of the second half, an original waltz with some tight harmonies. Maria enjoyed a medley of two songs from The Sound of Music. Mehldau’s balance of ingenuity and virtuosity was a pleasure as always.

one sixtyblue

For my birthday dinner last week, Maria and I picked one sixtyblue. We loved the dining room and the food. Maria wasn’t crazy about the lounge music, but I liked it, and the volume was just right. The service was very good, although the pace was a little slow. We were there on a weeknight, and the restaurant wasn’t close to full, so we figured they were in no hurry to move us out. Letting diners linger could only result in more liquor and food orders. And we were in no hurry either, so we just relaxed and let it be.

Maria had a salad and I ordered scallops to start. The scallops were served with asparagus, which Maria loves. For the main course, I had the duck, which was delicious, and Maria’s pasta with mushrooms was fantastic. Maria requested some more asparagus, and they brought us a heaping plateful. After the main course, they brought us a tiny glass each of mango juice with grapefruit ice cream, “to cleanse the palate.” A perfect touch. For desert, I could not pass up the chocolate soufflé torte, and it was very good, although I didn’t care for the salt in the caramel sauce. Maria had the dismantled lime pie, which I almost ordered, and that was truly amazing, intensely flavorful.

It was an excellent evening. One sixtyblue deserves its reputation as a premier destination.

Undo

I didn't go to the No Fluff conference. It was cancelled.

And it appears that the Bill Charlap trio won't be at the Jazz Showcase in May after all. That's probably a good thing because we'd be bankrupt after paying to see him every night for a week.

Ella did come with me to work on Friday. She has enjoyed "Kids At Work Day" as long as I can remember, and while it wasn't the official "Kids At Work Day" (which is 23 April), it was our official day together. I wanted her to learn some programming, and a little googling quickly turned up Scratch, an ingenious (and free!) programming environment for kids. So we played with Scratch most of the day, which went over well I think. Ella chose Panda Express for lunch, and then we took a break at the Art Institute, where she was most impressed with some statuettes from southern Asia.

Caverns, Charlap and Scala

Lots of catching up to do.

Last week, we were in Arizona for a few days, to celebrate Mom’s birthday. It was nice to spend some time with my own family, with my sisters and with their families. And we all enjoyed being in the warm weather for a few days. The day trip to Kartchner Caverns was fascinating, although the time in the bus was a little challenging with the kids. (I liked driving past the aircraft graveyards near Tucson.) The worst part of the weekend was when Mom had to check in to the hospital for some IV antibiotics—it was the right thing to do, of course, but the timing was unfortunate for everyone, especially for her. The best part of the weekend for me was to be with Martin in the swimming pool, and to watch this two-year-old’s transformation over two short days from cautiously clinging to the wall to leaping fearlessly into the pool.

Friday night, Maria and I saw the Blue Note Seven at Symphony Center. We’re fans of Bill Charlap, and I love Nicholas Payton, but it was Lewis Nash on the drums that stole the show. Nash has a very conventional kit, over which he is supreme commander. He exuded a cool confidence that reminded me very much of DeJohnette. It was clear that every contact of matter against matter within Nash’s domain was exactly as he intended. As much as I enjoyed the other players, it was hard for me to take my eyes off of Nash. The other player that really intrigued me was Payton. In a Monk-ish way, it seemed that Payton was trying to expand the music in several ways as he played—stretching the time out to find new ways to interact with the other players, and stretching the audio spectrum to find new notes in between the ones we know. It may have put some people off, but Maria and I both enjoyed it. Charlap had a couple intriguing solos, but spent most of the concert as an ensemble player, as did the others as well. Maria and I are really looking forward to Charlap’s visit to the Jazz Showcase in May (according to this site)! It will be the first time we have seen Charlap lead his own group.

Work is busy again, just like this time last year. The difference is that this year my boss has some clue about what I do, and is in a much better position to help me prioritize and manage my workload than any boss I’ve had in years.

Since the beginning of the year, I’m making time when I can to learn a new programming language called Scala. It’s a functional programming language, which is a concept that is clearly making a transition now from academia to the real world. Scala appeals to me because it runs on the Java Virtual Machine and is very interoperable with Java (unlike other popular FP languages like Erlang or Haskell). There is a new group called the Chicago Area Scala Enthusiasts. The first two meetings have been interesting and well attended.

The No Fluff Just Stuff conference is coming to Chicago in a couple weeks. I went for the first time last year, and it was a badly needed shot in the arm. Looking forward to going again.

DST

Not a fan of daylight savings. You want to get up earlier? Stay up later? Fine! Change your own watch if it helps! But don't foist it on me.

And I don't know why, but I find it remarkably confusing to change the time. We're moving the clocks up, so what we used to call 6 PM we will now call 7 PM, so it seems like it should be darker earlier at night, but it isn't, it gets dark later. It shouldn't be so confusing but apparently my brain just can't handle it.

Ulrich Schnauss

After a late night on Monday, I couldn't make the time Tuesday morning to make espresso at home. So I stopped at Intelligentsia on the way to work, and they were playing Ulrich Schnauss! An inspired choice. Schnauss is accessible ambient-techno, good morning music. Amazon sent me a recommendation for Schnauss, and for once they were spot on. My favorite song of his is "a million miles away", which used to be a free download from his website but is no longer there.

Green Mill

Maria and I went out to celebrate her birthday Monday night. We ate at Cafe Spiaggia, where we met for our first date twelve years ago. We had a mushroom appetizer and salad. Maria had gnocchi, which were simple but very good. I had pork, which tasted a bit off to me, or maybe it was a wood-roasted flavor I just wasn't used to. Finally, we shared a tiramisu with cappuccino. Excellent service, and very good food, save the pork.

Then on to the Green Mill, where we first met. We hadn't been there together for years, and we stopped going mainly because it was prohibitively smoky. But now, with the indoor smoking ban, we can go again.

Playing Monday night were Patricia Barber and her quartet. [We saw her last year at Pianoforte with Michael Arnopol.] They were amazing. I had seen drummer Eric Montzka before, but Maria had not. Few drummers are as musical, or tune the drums as well, I think. DeJohnette comes to mind. He played an egg-shaker towards the end of a quiet ballad and, while shaking it with his fingers, rolled the shaker in and out of his palm. His hand was a high-pass filter, completely changing the tone of the shaker! Cool.

The group played a polyrhythmic tune--I think Charlie Parker played it, but I can't remember the name--that left our jaws hanging. Before the song started, Barber had asked the band to "let me know where the one is." We had no idea, except when Arnopol on the octave-shifted electric bass [yeah baby!] came back to the start of his pattern. What a joy to listen to a group of selfless musicians of that caliber, listening to each other, and contributing to a whole far greater than its formidable parts.

Where In The World?

Picasa has a game called Where In The World. You see a picture that someone uploaded to Picasa, and have to guess the location where you think the picture was taken. You get points based on how close your selected location is to the reported location. My high score so far is just over 2900 points. How high can you go?

ADDED 1 Feb: Ooh, I got within a block of this one!

Mosquito Tuning

Pairs of mosquitos adjust the frequency of their beating wings until they are a perfect fifth apart. They mate only when the frequencies are in tune and produce an overtone.

Data Transmission

Happy New Year!

I discovered the Data Transmission podcast when I saw that Moby had created a mix for them. Every few days, a new hour-long mix of house/chill/disco. Great for working, commuting, or working out.

Completely unrelated: I love this commercial. The moon guy justs kills me.