Home › Blog ›

It's Just this Little Chromium Switch Here

Weblogging and commentary by Chip Rosenthal

Austin Bloggers Status

Submitted by chip on Mon, 08-Mar-2004 - 1:22 pm
in

The Austin Bloggers web site has been unavailable since last Friday. The problem is that the domain has lapsed and gone on hold. It's moved into a redemption period where it's a lot more difficult and expensive to renew. The web site will be back shortly, once the problem is resolved. Hopefully at the same location, maybe somewhere else.

Nonetheless, in the meantime, you still can reach the site at the legacy address austinbloggers.soaustin.net.

Stroustrup on C++

Submitted by chip on Mon, 01-Mar-2004 - 3:31 pm
in

Last week, the IEEE Computer Society Austin Chapter hosted a presentation by Bjarne Stroustrup, the inventor of the C++ programming language.

The event was amazingly well attended. I'd guess 250 people or more. Stroustrup was an entertaining presenter, talking more like the Bell Labs hacker he was than the Aggie academic he is now.

The presentation was, essentially, a sales pitch for the C++ programming language. Some points were convincing, some less so. One point he made effectively is that C++ is a good choice for systems programming. He highlighted how, for instance, it offers reliability and repeatability not available in a java implementation. The biggest knocks C++ takes, primarily by people advocating lower-level languages such as C or assembler, are size and performance. He claimed C++ programs can be reasonable size, without resorting to tricks like partial implementations that dumb down the language. He also claimed that C++ performance can be excellent. He presented a numerics benchmark. The C++ implementation performed so well, you could see the two inflection points as the test filled the L1 and L2 caches of the processor.

The second point was that C++ templates and containers are good. Of this I'm less convinced. I agree they are extremely powerful, in that they offer a way to generalize the datatypes used in classes. Nonetheless, templates make my head hurt. I understand their appeal and I'm sure, with time, I'd become more comfortable with them. My fear is how well understood this all is. Are such programs easily understood and maintained? Would I just end up writing elegant code that nobody but a few experts could figure out? I'm not sure.

At this point, I'm arguing mostly out of ignorance. Sometimes you see a language feature, such as exceptions, and it's readily apparent how cool it is. Not so with templates. Maybe with time I'll warm up to them. All I need is a test case to try them out. Unfortunately, I've been so badly corrupted by perl, I hardly use anything else these days for small systems programming problems.

Oscar's Tin Ear

Submitted by chip on Mon, 01-Mar-2004 - 4:03 am
in

I usually don't write about pop culture, but I am so disgusted with last night's Academy Awards I'm making an exception. It's not that I didn't like Lord of the Rings, but give me a break. I think a sack of shit would've won if it had "Frodo's Poop" scribbled on it.

I'm mostly irked about that Annie Lennox song from LOTR winning Best Original Song. I remember when it played at the end of the movie, I felt like I was being whapped on the head by a soggy wooden club.

The Belleville Rendez-Vous (Real Audio sample here), on the other hand, was a delightful romp, which I thought deserved to win. Les Triplettes de Belleville was a marvelously fun movie, and the music played a large part in that. (There was no dialog.)

I'm tickled that Mitch and Mickey were nominated. Of course, Kiss at the End of the Rainbow didn't deserve to win any more than Blame Canada did, but it was nice to see it recognized.

This is terrible. My faith in Hollywood is shaken.

Phooey for Bad Eats: Manny Hattan's

Submitted by chip on Tue, 24-Feb-2004 - 2:21 am
in
I'm gonna have a pastrami on white bread with, uh, mayonnaise and tomatoes and lettuce. -Annie Hall

I recently had one of my worst dining experiences in Austin at the Manny Hattan's...ummm...restaurant. The sign says "New York delicatessen," but I sure as heck don't. Unless maybe they mean New York, Hell and not New York City.

Hooray for Good Eats: HPB&G

Submitted by chip on Tue, 24-Feb-2004 - 2:20 am
in

I recently had one of my best dining experiences in Austin at the Hyde Park Bar & Grill. Sad to say, I've lived in Austin for over a decade, but somehow never managed to visit. The food was delicious, the price was reasonable, and the visit was enjoyable. I won't wait another decade for my next visit.

Knoppix ... Ohhhh Pretty!

Submitted by chip on Mon, 23-Feb-2004 - 4:36 pm
in

Earlier this month, there was an update release of the Knoppix Linux distribution. Knoppix is intended to be run as a live CD distribution. That is, you stick the CD into a PC, start it up, and Linux comes up. It runs off the CD without touching the hard disk. Thus, any PC--even one running Microsoft Windows--can run Linux without loading anything onto the hard disk or otherwise changing the existing system.

There has been enormous interest in this release. All of the download mirror sites have been getting hammered. I had difficulty finding one that would respond at all, and even then it took about 36 hours to retrieve the CD image.

Once the image was burned to CD, I tested it out on coldsnap, a 450MHz Pentium II beigebox system with 128MB memory. The system booted just fine and dropped right into the X graphical environment with the KDE desktop.

It is quite impressive, but ultimately I'm a bit puzzled. Knoppix is an excellent demonstration of the Linux environment. I'd feel comfortable handing a copy to somebody who was running Windows and wanted to see what all the Linux hoo-ha is about. Also, Knoppix could be a useful system recovery tool. If you have a system with disk problems, for example, you could boot Knoppix and effect repairs.

Other than that, I'm hard pressed to find applications for it. Maybe you could use it if you want access to Linux on public computer terminals, but even then it seems like it would be frustrating to be unable to save session state. When I'm on a public terminal and need access to a Linux environment, I'll run a java applet that implements an ssh client, and use that to access my home system.

The Knoppix distribution is very impressive. I wonder, however, if it has purpose beyond being a cool demo.

Firefox is One Foxy Browser

Submitted by chip on Wed, 11-Feb-2004 - 4:20 am
in

Get FirefoxI've started using the Mozilla Firefox web browser. I had tried the predecessor Firebird browser, but I didn't like it enough to make the move. I think I'm ready now.

Firefox feels faster and more robust. There remains, however, a few missing functions I wish it had.

My biggest dislike is the lack of menu controls for cookie handling. I configure the browser to "ask before accepting" cookies. Moreover, I usually tell Firefox to remember which sites I want to allow cookies and which to block. These are pretty basic functions, offered both in Firefox and Mozilla. The problem is that if I want to change a site, Firefox forces me to go into the cookie configuration, look up the site, and manually delete it from the list. Mozilla offers a quick command on the menus.

Also, there doesn't seem to be any controls for animated images. In Mozilla, the Stop command will freeze animated images. Also, you can force endless-looped images to play only once, or even suppress animation completely. Firefox lacks these features.

There is hope. Firefox is remarkably extensible, so it's possible that someday an extension will be written to add them. On the other hand, the extensions are not a panacea. There is not a functioning remove procedure. Also, they can be clunky. For instance, the Bookmark Checker adds important functionality, but not very well. You can, for example, check all the links in a collapsed folder, but when you expand the folder to view inside the link statuses will be removed.

Nonetheless, for a version 0.8 technology preview release, it's remarkably solid and functional. I think Firefox may become my browser of choice--even on those operating systems that bundle their own web browser.

Harmon Leon's Blind Date

Submitted by chip on Mon, 09-Feb-2004 - 3:09 pm
in

Link: Blind Date, Leiderhosen, and Me.

A relationship involves compromise. For my girlfriend, it involves giving up any hope of ever using her fireplace, because the way is blocked with computers and equipment. For me, it involves living with a television in the house.

I hate the thing. I've spent many years successfully avoiding the one-eyed monster. Yet, I must admit, sometimes late at night, when the girlfriend has gone off to bed, I'll sneak out to the living room and see what's on the tube. Usually the choice is between a shop-at-home show and a dating game show--which makes me want to play solitaire or staple my head to the floor instead.

So, having discovered these dating shows, I think the linked article is hysterical, one of the two funniest things I've read in a while. The other funny thing being an article by Harlan Ellison I was reading just the other day, coincidentally enough, where he recounts his antics as a contestant on The Dating Game. (via mefi)

The Road to Wigan Pier

Submitted by chip on Sat, 07-Feb-2004 - 11:17 am
in

In the mid 20th century, George Orwell visited the English mining town of Wigan. He witnessed and wrote about the difficult lives of the coal miners. In The Road to Wigan Pier, local writer and critic Robi Polgar brings Orwell's experience to the stage.

There are two ways you could make this into a play. One would be a terribly depressing melodrama. The other is a comedy, song, and dance revue. Polgar does the latter. It's a curiously odd piece, sometimes moving, and often funny.

The highlight of the play was a trip down a coal mine, narrated by George Orwell. My friend Buffy Manners did a great job on costumes, which played a big role as the actors slipped in and out of various characters (and...ahem...outhouses). The songs were pleasant enough, with a 12-string acoustic and Rickenbacker electric giving them a jangly Beatlesque feel. The play, unfortunately, leaves with a one-too-many-endings feeling, as Polgar struggles to give the tragedy an upbeat finish.

Unless you are a Thatcherite, I would recommend seeing it. Only problem is it's closing weekend. Tonight is your last chance. If you do go, I recommend you get there early. Last night was a full house. More info here.

Drastic Re-engineering to Stop Spam

Submitted by chip on Fri, 06-Feb-2004 - 4:53 pm
in

Many people advocate solving the spam problem by discarding the current email infrastructure and replacing it with something with something new. This approach is gaining added attention. Bill Gates predicted an end to spam at the recent World Economic Forum. His solution features an electronic postage scheme, presumably based on the Penny Black technology currently being developed by Microsoft.

I think Gates is right that a massive re-engineering is necessary to stop spam, but I think he's looking through the wrong end of the binoculars. Most of the spam coming into our mailboxes today is the result of design flaws and implementation bugs in Microsoft products. If these flaws and vulnerabilities were remedied, the spam problem would drop to a fraction of the current levels.

The problem is that over the past year, virus writers and spam senders have begun pooling their efforts. Microsoft products have always been very susceptible to malware like viruses and worms. At one time this was a local problem. An infected system was a hazard primarily to the PC owner and his co-workers or friends. Now, spammers have discovered how to use malware to convert a PC into a high-volume spam transmitting platform. That has turned malware infection into a global problem, and the primary factor driving the current spam epidemic.

So when Bill Gates says we need to change the infrastructure he's right. But maybe he ought to look at fixing the defects in his own products before trying to remake the entire Internet to ameliorate those defects.