So the bailout failed

This is what the US Constitution was designed for - to make such things extremely difficult. It may yet pass, but it will look nothing like the thing that they tried to pass today. Everybody will have had some time to cool down, and may be the financial people will realize that their worst enemy is indeed fear itself.

Us or them?

Here is what happens when America (and the Western World in general) is paralyzed with the guilt.

We should go ahead andd drill for oil here. Because whoever else will do it will do it worse - would you rather Mr. Chavez set the ecological standard? Or the Chinese?

We should go ahead and take over the decaying African messes. Would you rather Saudi Arabia do it, like the do in Sudan? Or China, again, as in the linked article?

We should bring back polluting industries on our shores, because no matter how bad they are here, they are worse in China.

How long will China's smog subsidize our national parks? How long will China's exploited workers unions? How long will China's brutality subsidize our paralysis of will in failed countries?

The article gives us all a glimpse of what the world will be like if US will slip into a coma that already claimed England, the coma that France never left since WW1 or even earlier. Do you like it?

My mom was having a surgery

That explains no posts over the last couple of weeks.

She is slowly recovering. Barring something unexpected things should go well.

On smiting

Today I was at a Bar Mitzvah, and the text was saying, among other things, "He shall smite you with consumption". Now, I know that consumption is a nasty disease. But the other meaning is also very fitting, don't you think?

Deeper reason of the current crisis

In essence, we've been living beyond our mean for the last 30 years. And, for once, it was not just rich, but mostly poor and middle-class who were doing that. The poor had the government assistance, to a point when "being poor" no longer means "being deprived of necessities", but rather "not having work a work to go to". And the middle class had their credit cards and home equity.

Well, the ride is over. We're about to find out if the country whose major industries are "Services" and "Finance" can support the kind of lifestyle we're accustomed to. Can we really afford to ship all the dirty stuff to China and enjoy our clear air here while they die of pollution? Can we really survive on selling movies, music and software? When we have nothing to buy our toys with, we may need to re-learn to make them.

Perfect storm in finances

The perfect conditions for the bubble: the greed of bankers who thought they found a way to turn poor people into risk-free investments, and the do-gooding of socialists who wanted everybody to live in a house, invome be damned.

Statically typed language - old man's unit tests

After implementing GUI testing support that should allow me to write acceptance tests, I am finally getting to the refactoring of our "tween" application, piece by piece. The foal is to cleanly separate GUI from business logic. The business reason to do this is to put some long-running task into background, but I also have a long-term intent of unlocking 12 years worth of business logic from the obsolete XWindows GUI and putting a better, faster face on it.

Well, there are no unit tests at all available for me to verify that this stuff still works. But it's C++, so I can be pretty sure that replacing f->x[i] with f->x(i) will not break anything as long as the compiler is satisfied.

And that brings me to the title of the post. Without tests covering every single line I change, I would not dare to do what I am doing in Python, perl or Smalltalk. In C++, I can risk it because I can limit myself to such step that can be verified with compilation and a simple acceptance test. So. Static types are useful for some things, anyway.

"You know, Aleksey - you're not a traitor. You're an enemy"

An article on Russian Internet describing a "conversation" between Putin an an opposition journalist, Aleksey Venedictov. Thin Bush inviting Michael Moore for a "chat.

http://vazhno.ru/important/article/13034/

(more later)

Invitation to bad code.

Here is a nice Windows programming technique from "The Old New Thing":

What possible use are those extra bits in kernel handles? Part 2: Overcoming limited expressiveness

This is something that we should have left in the 90s and on embedded systems. Bit twidddling in OS handles! And yet Windows proudly proclaims that it can still do it. Will we ever grow up?

Are you flaming kidding?

Whose propaganda is more over-the-top? I'd say Republicans outdid Democrats this time. Gah.

Spore has landed

Whatever plans I had for blogging, coding, reading, eating and sleeping are on hold. "Spore" was purchased today at about 8:30 at Target. The only reason I am writing this is because the kids are playing at the moment.

Yes, it is that engrossing.

Words not said

Obama did not say "Fight for America"
McCain did not say "Color"

Not once.

Liveblogging McCain at RNC

"I work for you" - addresser to RNC. Hmmm.

Iraq war mentioned. "Mission Accomplished", take N+1.

Mea culpa for Republican Party. Once you lost trust, what can you do to get it back? Nothing. (I've just had that conversation with my son) And McCain gives no details. How about announcing that evbery incumbent Republican in Congress will not run again?

"I will... He will... BOOO" repeat. Ad nauseam.

Support retraining.

More choice in education. No vouchers? Nope.

Lead the world in green things, the American way. I like taht! We can do it our way - make things nice and make some money in the process.

Georgia. Strong words to Russia.

Did McCain just say that he will not go to war, no matter what?

"The end of the Cold War"? Someone is not thinking.

The POW part.

Country as an idea, not a place. That's why I am here!

Did Obama promise to fight for the country?

Not a bad ending, considering.

My first success with embedded programming!

I've got a blinkenlight and a flipping display message!

The board is done by my friend, he also provided me with the flash programmer, but the code is all mine. Welcome to the AVR world. I am soo excited!

Dissidents needed. Again.

When you check out the Russian Internet, one of the more striking features is the complete silence of the opposition. Not a word from Kasparov, Ryjkov, Kasianov, Yavlinsky, Nemtzov.

I think this signifies the end of opposition in Russia. Putin clearly demonstrated that politicians cannot be in opposition. "Politician", almost by definition, is someone who is advancing an agenda with the goal of getting to power. The "getting to power" part is no longer open in Russia, not in anything short of armed rebellion or political assassination (not happening, and outside of "politics" anyway).

Since politicians will not argue with the Russian powers that be, Russia needs to bring back the people she did not need these last 15 years. A dissident is someone who would bear enormous personal sacrifices for his truth and his country, with no prospect of any power as a reward. Soviet Union had a good crop in its time. Of course, some of the ideas that inspired them are discredited (democracy and capitalism are swearwords in Russia now), and other ideas are now in power (Great Russia, God's People). Still, a dissident is now the only kind of person that would speak up against Russian government inside Russia.