myShoggoth

Oscar Peterson at the Jazz Alley

We just got back from Oscar Peterson's concert at the Jazz Alley.  It was incredible, and he's there for the next four or five nights, although at least the middle of the week shows are already sold out.  I feel really lucky to have seen (and heard) him.

I noticed that Ray Ozzie was there, and he was certainly getting and enjoying the music.  In fact, he was one of the very few who were moving and grooving with that fantastic jazz.  My respect has gone up for the guy (who I've never met...).

I got the impression that the drummer knew who he was, or maybe it was that a spotlight was shining close enough (he was seated right next to the stage) that he was particularly illuminated, but the drummer glanced over at him often throughout the performance.  Maybe he was just checking him as a statistical audience reaction sampling.

Very Strange Game Show Idea

From my dream last night:

Chaperone!

Contestants sit down at dinner tables with overeducated women and try to impress them.  Ever present chaperone/waiters are there to make them look bad and slap them down when they get too forward or unrefined.

Where did that dream come from, anyway?

Write A Book?

Relaxing during a very short vacation this weekend gave me an idea I hadn't considered for a long time:  I should write a book.  About creating software.  End to end, as detailed as possible, with as many best practices as I knpw and/or can learn.

I was thinking about the Foundations series of articles I wrote on the old version of this blog.  At the time that was an attempt to fully quantify the things you needed to get right to have world class software, but I didn't try to say how to achieve it (although I did give pointers for more information where I could), just what needed to be done.

Around the time I wrote those and even more since then I've been heavily involved less in day-to-day coding and more in the mountain of things that must be done right for the day-to-day coding to be meaningful.  I think a one stop way to get a full picture of software creation would be valuable, and I'm not aware yet of anyone else having created it.

I'm going to create a new category for blog posts here, and tag all my content intended for the book with it.  I'll be creative and call it "Book".  The way I figured it is that if I'm successful I'll have a public place where people can comment on the contents as it is underway, and the end product should be substantially better than it otherwise would have been.  If I don't end up actually publishing I've got a bunch of additional posts on my blog with useful information.  Win-win.

This isn't the first book-written-by-blog-posts, nor will it be the last.  I can't think of a better way to do it, hopefully there will be positive reinforcement and it will give some instant gratification to something that normally is just the opposite.

I should point out that while I will only publish the entries to the blog once they get to some reasonable level of content and quality, I will definitely be editing them in place.  In many cases rewriting them.  I also have no intention to try to post in any particular order, just what I feel like writing about when I write them.

Temperature and Bland Coffee

We're off on a short little vacation to Roche Harbor, on San Juan Island.  It is a nice little getaway, last time we did it off peak season and the place was deserted.  Now we're here during prime time and it is... not.

Since it is only three or four hours of travel we brought a cooler of food and related, and are renting a small condo.  We can cook our own food for breakfast and even lunch and not stress about making it to a restaurant in time.

One major advantage for me is bringing my own coffee, so I roasted up some of the Bolivia Organic Peaberry de Montana, the star of my last order from Sweet Maria’s.  Peaberry is just a genetic mutation of the seed of the coffee tree's fruit, it doesn't actually in itself make for a better coffee.  Growers know they can get a premium for them, however, so they take extra care in the picking and preparation.  That extra care makes them better, reinforcing consumer's idea that they're intrinsically better.  Sometimes perception creates reality.

This particular coffee is incredible.  Karthik, one of the Messenger team devs, has gotten addicted to it and asked me to roast up a batch for him to take home.  As I did that I also roasted up a batch for this little vacation.

We brought my burr grinder to make sure it would be as fresh as possible when brewed.  We also used bottled water to avoid San Juan's... mineral tasting tap water (that's being kind). All of this preparation and forethought, and then... flat.  Blah.  Nothing special.  What happened?

I blame the brewer, it is a little automatic drip piece of junk and my money is on it not getting the water hot enough.  You need a high enough temperature to extract the coffee oils that the roasting has brought from deep within the bean to the surface (that's why dark roasted coffee looks and feels a little oily).  If your brewer isn't at the right temperature range when the water hits the grounds, it won't be able to pull out much of the oils and you'll be left with whatever it is able to get.  Flat.  Blah.  Nothing special.

The upshot is that I need to consider bringing my own brewers on these little getaways, and I will need to order another batch of the Bolivian Peaberry soon.  Coffee is a crop and there's no reason for me to believe that the next harvest even from the same farm(s) will produce as nice of a result.  Enjoy it while you can.

Now a Windows Live Space

I'm mixed about the Windows Live Spaces thing so far.  I like much of what that team has done, but so far the perf is much worse (probably launch popularity issues more than intrinsic issues) and I'm not quite sure if I like the look and layout as much as I did the previous one.  I'll have to play around with the customization options and see what I can do.

I'll also do the "What's new" tour to make sure I'm taking advantage of the new stuff I want to.  A pet peeve of mine is people who complain that they want certain features and functionality (which I have for Spaces) and then never actually investigate with the new versions to see if the team did those things.

The blog editing is cleaner but the text needs to be indented on the left more.