Cover Song - Thunderstruck performed by 2Cellos

April 18, 2015

The fine fellows of 2Cellos not only play well, but they have great videos for some of their cover songs. Here they perform Thunderstruck by AC/DC.

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Always Valid

April 15, 2015

(One from the archives. Not sure when I wrote this. I think it still stands.)

These days, with the rise in programmer testing (also known as unit testing to its friends) much testing effort is put into ensuring that program logic is correct. This is good and to be encouraged at all times. A program that does the right thing is always more likely to be correct than one that does not. Interestingly, with all of this new-found enthusiasm for testing, there seems to be a few gaps in our approach. The one I'd like to discuss here is the principle of "Always Valid".

This principle is easy to arrive at from first principles. You see, programs do stuff. Every programmer knows this. We know it because we're the ones that tell them how to do it. But pause a moment and consider what this "stuff" is most of the time. The vast majority of the time we're processing data; and it's the data that is the star of the show. Our programs are just descriptions of what we want to do to that data. The data is the important thing.

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Metallica - Enter Sandman cover

April 11, 2015

I love eccentric cover songs and what better way to start a series of these than with Enter Sandman by Metallica played on a banjo?

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Where Is My Global Warming?

December 31, 2014

Sitting here in lovely Dodgeville, WI with the temperature at 2 degrees Fahrenheit and a windchill of -10 degrees Fahrenheit, what else could my thoughts turn to than global warming? As I am sure is true of many of us in the Upper Midwest, I am quite keen on the idea of global warming. I want some global warming. The problem is that I'm not seeing any. None, nada, zip.

And it would seem that I am not imagining this lack of blazingly warm temperatures. Here are a few headlines that I saw linked from the Drudge Report today and an extra one for good measure.

Global Sea Ice Breaks Record High For The Day

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Mechanics Of Writing A Book

December 30, 2014

I have always loved books, so the thought of writing one (or more) has never really been far from my mind. I have been fortunate to have been on the side-lines of the publishing business for a few books, so that whet my appetite even more. I have been a pre-press technical reviewer for a handful of technical programming books from publishers that there's a good chance you've heard of. I have also been a book reviewer for the Slashdot website, where you can find at least two dozen reviews written by yours truly. These activities were a source of encouragement to learn more about books.

##Fiction Or Non-Fiction?

I suspect that fiction is the hardest kind of book to write because you not only need to know how to write, but you also need an imagination that will provide you with what to write. As a computer programmer, my imagination is pretty limited, so that leaves non-fiction. Then there is the choice of topic. As a computer programmer and a pastor, I could write about a number of geeky or theological areas. In the end, for my first book, I went with theology and Apostolic Baptism was the result.

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