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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Back! to Jogging

Those who know me (there aren't too many) know that running is an addiction of mine. But just like any addiction there comes a time when a man must realize when to quit. In the immortal words of Dirty Harry, "A man's got to know his limitations." That limitation hit me in the back with a Magnum force a few weeks ago and I'm still trying to recover from it.

Running is a great stress reliever, but not when backache comes calling. This latest one came without a warning. One day I rolled out of bed and there it was. Like any addict, I ignored the pain and went about my running, but this one didn't seem interested in healing. The doctor says the spine looks normal, it's probably a bulging disc. The advice: take it easy, do some back exercises and ride it out.

So for the past couple of weeks I had replaced jogging with walking. It's not so easy kicking such a strong habit, specially one that's been a part of my life for so long. Still, walking isn't so bad once you get used to it, specially if the alternative is painful pinches. It's inevitable that if live long enough, I'd have to give up running at some point. I just hope that time is not now. Anyways, tonight I finally switched over to some light jogging and there seems to be a glimmer of hope there. The pain is still there, but it feels more subdued now.

Human body is a flawed piece of work. Regardless of the intelligent design versus the evolution debate, the human body is no work of art. I can understand that nature is imperfect, but if god is the designer, he can't be that perfect creator that religion purports him to be. He sure has a lot of learning about the KISS concept, as in, Keep It Simple, Stupid. I mean why all this complexity when he probably could have taken a much simpler approach?

Reminds me of Nomad, the perfect sterilizing machine, from the Star Trek Episode, The Changeling. This is what it said, referring to biological units (humans):
The unit Scott is a primitive structure. Insufficient safeguards built in. Breakdown can occur from many causes. Self-maintenance systems of low reliability.

If only I could have Nomad fix my back the way he revived Scotty after killing him with a high energy bolt. But alas, Nomad wasn't so perfect itself either, and it finally met its own demise by the imperfect Captain Kirk.

running,jogging,back pain,star trek,nomad,god,religion,dirty harry
Labels: back pain, god, jogging, religion, running, star trek
<Back! to Jogging>

// posted by rh

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Sunday, January 20, 2008

The Beauty of Winter

I know many people don't like winters. In the northeastern US, where I live, you can see expressions of pain and depression on many faces when temperatures drop and the snow season starts. Kids, being the energetic creatures that they are, don't mind it though. For them there's lots of fun to be had in snow and ice. They almost worship it, if nothing, for its supreme power to dictate school cancellations.

This picture of a recent snowfall reminds of my childhood, growing up in Tehran. We never had quite the bone-chilling temperatures that we sometimes experience in the northeast, nor did we have the volume of the powdery snow that we receive here, but we still had plenty of snow and it usually was of the wet variety, good for making great snow balls. Even there, the snow had the magical power to force school cancellations, and who could complain about that.

winter,snow,school,northeast
Labels: environment
<The Beauty of Winter>

// posted by rh

1 comments

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Demise of IT? So What.

Here we go again with Nick Carr spraying his anti-IT bile around. This time it's in the form of a new book, arguing that IT departments and software developers will be extinct soon. Why does he matter? Because he's a so-called pundit, a Harvard-educated writer, who in 2003 wrote a scathing article in Harvard Business Review titled, "IT Doesn't Matter". It ruffled a few feathers back then, just as the industry was pulling itself out of the imploded tech fiasco.

So he's back again, trumpeting his negativism about the software and the IT industry in general. Read a viewpoint here. I don't understand what Mr. Carr's point is? I mean besides creating controversy and pushing a few books in the process.

He argues that IT and the software industry will go down the same road as the electric generation business went a century ago. Back then many factories had their own generators. Then the utility companies became efficient enough and the economies of scale replaced self-generation with buying service from a large utility company. First of all, is that a good thing? Today we are at the mercy of the monopolistic utility companies. They charge whatever they want, they ignore consumer pleas when their meters are faulty and they take their time restoring power when it goes out. So is this in the cards for the companies' IT infrastructure? Google or Amazon taking the helm and treat us as they please?

Secondly, how much foresight does it take to predict big shifts in the IT industry? Every industry goes through changes, not just IT. So the PC might be dead in 20 years, big deal. Cars and clothes and MRI machines won't be the same either. Given long enough time, even Earth will look different than it does today.

It's easy to prognosticate about the future. No one really knows how things will shake out 20 years from now. There are a million possibilities and we all know the future will be different than the present. If Mr. Carr had predicted the rise of Google, Amazon, and Facebook 20 years ago, I might have been impressed. But just looking at a slice of time today and extrapolating it into the future, a 9-year old could do it, and he'll probably be just as wrong as Mr. Carr is.

Disclaimer: My opinions are based on material available in the media and Mr. Carr's Web site. I have not read nor am I planning to read his book. But if you want to buy it, be my guest.

information technology,nick carr,software development,google,amazon
Labels: amazon, google, technology
<The Demise of IT? So What.>

// posted by rh

0 comments

Friday, January 04, 2008

Pain and Program Exceptions

Happy new year. Not so much for me. The new year was marked with a wicked lower back pain. An irritating bulging disk that gets inflamed every now and then and pinches the nerve, radiating pain everywhere. Guess that's just nature's way of manifesting my age to me. Yes I know, I'm not in my twenties anymore. Haven't been there for quite some time and the longer I live the further away I get.

So what do? Just add the back pain to the foot pain, added to the hamstring pain, added to the knee pain, and I have a nice variety of aches and pains.

I suppose pain is body's exception system. If you're a programmer, you know what I'm talking about. An exception in a program is raised when something totally unexpected happens in the running code and needs immediate attention. Good coding practice dictates that programmers anticipate and compensate for all possible errors before their code is hit by an exception. But sometimes there's no avoiding it.
A number gets divided by zero - an exception is raised.

A missing file is referenced - an exception is raised.

A piece of data doesn't fit inside a database table column - an exception is raised.

An XML stream is missing a tag - an exception is raised.
Graceful code is supposed to catch the exception, alert the user, and halt. After all something catastrophic must have happened and continuing the program could mean entering an invalid and unknown state. I admit, I've broken that rule a few times by catching an exception, logging the issue, and continuing as if nothing had happened. Why should proper programs get all the running privileges?

Body pain works the same way. It's a signal that something's gone wrong and needs attention. One must correct the problem before continuing with normal activities. That's exactly what I had intended to do. Give my back a few days of rest before getting back to running again. Except that last night I saw a jogger in the freezing temperature and my jealousy meter went off the scale.

So tonight I resolved to go for a walk, only to naturally speed up to a jogging pace after a few steps. And thus I entered into the invalid state of pain, as in, not knowing how my back will feel tomorrow. Oh well, why should only healthy, pain-free people have the privilege of running?

jogging,running,exceptions,programming,exception handling
Labels: jogging, programming, running
<Pain and Program Exceptions>

// posted by rh

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Back! to Jogging

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Sunday, January 20, 2008

The Beauty of Winter

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Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Demise of IT? So What.

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Friday, January 04, 2008

Pain and Program Exceptions

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