Tuesday, August 05, 2014
It doesn't have to be one piece to be monolithic
I'm still chugging away on “Project: Sippy-Cup” where, for the past few weeks, I've been hurrying up and waiting as we run through IOT with a few other companies.
The problem I've had with running tests here at the Ft. Lauderdale Office of The Corporation has been just the sheer number of moving parts required to test anything. “Project: Sippy-Cup” talks to component T, which talks to two other components, E and SM. SM talks to a few more components, and so on, and so on. It's difficult to stub these out because then time is wasted debugging the “fake” components and before you know it, you've written pretty much a duplicate component that is just as buggy as the component you are trying to fake, but with different bugs. So I try to use actual components whenever possible.
Only today I found out that the instance of component SM, for whatever reason, is refusing to talk to component T, which I'm using to test “Project: Sippy-Cup.” I've always attempted to use existing SM instances so I don't have to fire one up (when I first started, we didn't have our own SM component; it seems that in the few years I've been here, one has been written—fancy that!) and I've been afraid that something like this would crop up. So now I have to configure the SM component so that the T component is happy so that I can test “Project: Sippy-Cup.”
My complaints about this reached fellow cow-orker B, who wrote the following in email:
There's a word for software that requires every last piece of every last server to be running in order to test any part of it:
Monolithic.
B has a point. It doesn't have to be one piece to be monolithic.
Friday, August 15, 2014
ATM inside … ENJOY!
Bunny and I had a recomendation, and we were in the neighborhood, so we decided to give the Boynton Diner a try.
The food was okay, not exceptionally good to write about. I would not have given this former seafood restaurant (really—the decor just screamed “I AM A SEAFOOD RESTAURANT! LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE HUNGRY, AND DESPAIR!”) a second thought but for it's great attention to making money.
![[They sold AD SPACE on their outdoor sign%#8253]](/2014/08/15/cash-or-check.jpg "They sold AD SPACE on their outdoor sign‽")
Checks? Really? You accept checks? You can't be bothered to accept credit cards? Debit cards? Checks?
Sigh.
It's nice that they have an ATM so they can get a nice cut of the $3 “convenience fee” when using it.
They also had placemats. They're not rare. A lot of restaurants have place mats. What a lot of restaurants don't have are placements crammed with advertising—every last millimeter.
Ads.
On the placemats!
At this point, it was surprising that were not running custom advertising on the televisions mounted around the restaurant (although I am loath to give them the idea).
Like I said, the food was okay and the service was good. It was just the incessant advertising that got to us.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
The wonders of restaurant cutlery
Bunny and I were out eating at a restaurant when I noticed something a bit odd about my cutlery—the butter knife was magnetized!
![[The knife has a magnetic personality]](/2014/08/28/MagneticKnife.jpg "The knife has a magnetic personality")
No other utensil on the table was thusly magnetized. Just the one butter knife. How odd.
Update on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014
My friend Jason Vervlied sent me this:
I actually know why this happens.
When I was in my late teens/early 20's, late night dining at Denny's was a common occurrence, and we often noticed this there. We finally talked to a server about it and figured out why. It turns out, the trash bins they use for discarding waste food is lined with magnets to catch the silverware that is accidentally thrown away. Over time the knifes have such thick handles that they eventually become slightly magnetized themselves.
And know you know.
