My name is
David Robins:
Christian, lead developer (resume), writer, photographer, runner,
libertarian (voluntaryist),
and student.
This is also my son David Geoffrey Robins' site.
A Song of Ice and Fire (books 1-3)
News, Political ·Wednesday August 1, 2012 @ 19:26 EDT (link)
It's been a while since I've written here; and I have much to catch up on (such as Sharon's wedding, especially the photos thereof). It's a muggy summer here in St. Petersburg, not shockingly, of course, but it's our first. Honey's away visiting her parents for three weeks; and sometimes that might occasion staying longer hours at work, but honestly there's nothing interesting to do right now with a release pending next Wednesday, so I've been reading; it's nice to have made the time.
There are spoilers for the first three books below; you've been warned.
I have been making my way through George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (just finished book three and put a hold on book four); what I take from it so far is that it's not the "happily ever after" of Eddings or even Jordan: I did not expect (this back when I was watching not reading) Ned Stark to actually be killed—that was the first warning; and then Ygritte and Rob with various other cruelties interspersed. But then, feudal life likely was "nasty, brutish, and short" (to make some good use of that nasty state bootlicker Hobbes), especially for the "smallfolk"; I cannot fault his realism.
I see also the principle of nothing for nothing—Jon getting Winterfell seemed to good to be true, and indeed it was, because now (at the end of the third book, again) there is a choice to be made and no free lunch. He is not in the least sympathetic with libertarian thought (nor was it expected): the free people of beyond the wall are wiped out by the better disciplined and equipped King Stannis (but again, that's reality; he emphasized many times that discipline beat numbers, so it was no surprise, nor is it impossible for free people to organize cohesively; again, I claimed he had no sympathy for, not antipathy toward). Besides, it's a tale of the game of thrones, not "how free folk threw off the yoke of kings".
Whenever Martin gives, he demands something in return: Tyrion's maiming for his victories; if Snow chooses Winterfell he must burn his father's gods and forsake the oath to the Night's Watch (which means something, even if sworn to the same old gods); Jaime returns free but without his right hand; Lysa gets Baelish but loses her life (if he does well by Robert, who is going to have to grow up awfully fast, though, perhaps even a choice she would make, in her mental state); Rob likewise pays dear for forsaking his oath and choosing Jeyne; and the demands are no transient fees but permanent damage. In sometimes presenting these demands as alternates and choices perhaps the concept of sacrifice is also introduced.
Magic in the books is far rarer than the other worlds mentioned: the wise maesters are skeptical of its very existence and so far the only demonstrated existence of it are in evil creatures like the wights of the north. It remains to be seen at this early point what sort of tale is being woven, and above all what (or if) a larger point is to be made.
Books finished: Princeps' Fury, First Lord's Fury, Heretics of Dune, The Upside of Irrationality, A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords.
The state extortion machine, hard at work (I)
News, Political ·Thursday May 31, 2012 @ 14:37 EDT (link)
Honey writes:
I was pulled over on my way to the doctor; here are the events as they happened: I left my apartment at approximately 9:05 a.m. to get to my doctor's appointment at 9:30 a.m. I drove down Gandy/Park Blvd. on my way to 66th St. where the office is located. I stayed in the right hand lane on the way down Park Blvd. because my turn on 66th St. was a right turn. The traffic light at 66th St. was red when I approached it. There was a vehicle in front of me and I was on Park Blvd. in front of the Kentucky Fried Chicken. I saw several police vehicles at this intersection. I made my right hand turn after the light turned green and the vehicle in front of me had cleared my path. I also noticed a pedestrian crossing at the crosswalk, so I waited until the crosswalk was clear to make my right turn onto 66th St.
After I turned onto 66th St. I wondered what was going on; there were at least 5 or 6 police officers with lights on that had pulled people over. I had only been to this doctor's office one time, so I was looking to the right side of the road to see the numbers to know which building was mine. Right before the next traffic light I noticed a black police vehicle with its light on behind me. I had no idea why he/she would be stopping me, so I slowed down and put my right turn signal on so that if the officer was pulling me over he/she would know that I was looking for a safe place to pull over (out of the way of traffic). I turned right at the next traffic light and then put my left turn signal on to let the officer know that I was turning into the place of business that was on the left side of the road. I stopped my car, put it in park, then I put my car window down, turned the ignition off and adjusted my seat belt so that I could reach my proof of insurance. I've never been pulled over before and knew that I hadn't done anything that was against the law, so I put my proof of insurance down on the passenger seat next to me and waited for the officer to come to me.
When he approached my vehicle he asked for my driver's license and he also asked me why I had not had my seat belt on. I said "Sir, I've had my seat belt on the entire time". He then asked me why it was that he and another officer had seen me without my seat belt on. I said "Sir, I've had my seat belt on the entire time", he told me that my seat belt was a different color than my shirt and that he saw me put my seat belt on after I had been stopped. After I told him again that I had had my seat belt on the whole time, he shook his head and then went back to his vehicle with my driver's license. He was in his vehicle for a few minutes, then came back up to my car and gave me my license as well as a ticket. He said something about me having 30 days to pay it and I said "Sir, can I explain what you thought you saw (because he had said he saw me put my seat belt on after I had been pulled over). He told me to proceed and I said "Sir, I had to reach over to my glove box to get my proof of insurance and I had to adjust my seat belt to do that. He said, "That doesn't explain why I didn't see you wearing it earlier." I proceeded to tell him that I had had my seat belt on the entire time I was driving and even after I'd been stopped. He said he didn't believe me and then walked away to his vehicle and left. It was almost time for my doctor appointment, so I went down to the next block and went to the doctor, while I was there they doctor's office staff told me that the police had been pulling people over all morning.
The reason that I had to adjust my seat belt is that I am very short (4'10") and I can't reach the glove box without pulling my seat belt away from my chest to give myself room to reach the glove box. Also this officer doesn't know that I have to reach all the way behind me to reach my seat belt while I'm sitting in the car (I have to do this because my seat has to be almost all the way forward for me to reach the pedals). There would be no mistaking me reaching for my seat belt if that's what I had done. At no time while I was pulled over did I reach around to get my seat belt, it had been clicked into place the entire time.
Continued in part 2, court.
Books finished: Academ's Fury, Cursor's Fury, Captain's Fury.
Niagara gorge hike with dad
News ·Monday May 14, 2012 @ 01:22 EDT (link)
Dad and I took a trip to the Niagara gorge, and hiked along it, taking pictures; here are a few of them.
(Driving home back to Florida, we saw a WV license plate "CARPE AU" (seize the gold)… a good sentiment, so long as they weren't government employees.)
Florida to Canada, 22 hours
News ·Friday May 4, 2012 @ 22:45 EDT (link)
(Needs more details.)
We drove up from our place in Pinellas Park, Florida to my parents in Canada. And it's high time whoever's working on autonomous cars starts selling them commercially; I'd rather be napping while my car drives itself.
Books finished: Furies of Calderon.
A day at the beach
News ·Friday April 13, 2012 @ 19:49 EDT (link)
We went out to the beautiful white sand beach at Fort De Soto park for the day; brought some food, swam, read on the beach.
Books finished: Catching Fire, The Hunger Games, Second Foundation.
Hunger Games, Oscar Scherer
News ·Sunday March 25, 2012 @ 21:46 EDT (link)
Finished Hunger Games (book one) Saturday. Interesting. Maybe I'm reading too much anti-statism into it, though. Having their children sent to die in the middle east doesn't seem to rouse people much here and now, but then "our" state has a better propaganda arm.
On Sunday after church we went to Oscar Scherer State Park, a nice park with a lake (Osprey) and some trails. We walked the Green trail, two miles (the third mile was closed as a buffer for eagle habitats), and then I swam in the lake, and didn't get attacked by alligators, which is always refreshing. We happened to be at the park just as the Sarasota Folk and Accoustic Music Festival was finishing up, so got to hear a pretty good Simon and Garfunkel cover before we went walking. On the way home we drove out a little on FL-64 just to see what was there—came across the DeSoto speedway (which is for sale); looks like a nice area, even a few properties for sale along the road.
Books finished: Hatrack River, The Hunger Games.
Visiting the Ramanathans
News ·Saturday March 10, 2012 @ 21:35 EST (link)
After coming back from Manatee county, we stopped home to change and then drove to Sriram Ramanathan's place in Safety Harbor; he had kindly invited us and another co-worker, Carl, and his wife and two daughters for dinner. We got there at about 1845.
No war in Iran
News, Political ·Sunday March 4, 2012 @ 14:27 EST (link)
I went out to stand with some anti-war protestors today: first at Dale Mabry and Gandy Boulevard West (over in Tampa), then we moved to Dale Mabry and Interbay and walked down to the base. We were standing in the median, but were forced to leave and protest on the other side. There were some Ron Paul supporters and some Occupy people. Sometimes it's good to get off Facebook, put your shoes on and let people know how you feel. (I had a problem with a few of the chants, like "this racist war has got to go" or ones about Palestine, so I didn't participate. I don't think getting off-message like that is helpful, but most were relevant.)
I'm sold: rest of domains moved to freedns.afraid.org
News, Technical ·Sunday February 26, 2012 @ 17:00 EST (link)
The last time Bright House changed my IP for some random reason (I have my doubts if there's ever a good reason for in-use dynamic IP addresses to change), I moved one domain (i4031.net) over to freedns.afraid.org, since after looking around they appeared to be the best free DNS provider that allowed for automated updates. That was back in November. They just did it again, so I took the plunge and moved the rest of my domains over. It was a bit of a pain, but when they went and changed my IP again just a few minutes ago, it just took opening one URL to auto-update all the A (address) records. (If they start regularly changing the IP frequently, I could hook it up to a DHCP client script easily.) Anyway, I just wanted to say what a great service freedns.afraid.org is (they ask for a mention but don't require it, nor do they advertise on, frame/wrap, or redirect your domains without asking, or AFAICT do anything else remotely underhanded). Great lightweight (oppose GoDaddy's!) DNS manager; programmatic control; DNS dumps in XML or ASCII; they are far superior to GoDaddy in all ways for DNS management.
(As an aside, Firefox seems to have a bug where sometimes, at least with a laptop trackpad, it will ignore clicks on a web page (URL bar is fine); it seems related to having a site in another tab that is either slow to load or failing and retrying; at least, closing a tab with a slow-loading page in it made clicking work again.)
Books finished: Foundation and Empire.
Work, Florida, Libertarian Papers
News, Work ·Sunday January 29, 2012 @ 14:36 EST (link)
General status and a few comments since I've been here a couple months (started November 14). I can't get too specific with certain things: when I was interviewing they couldn't even tell me how many developers they had (small competitive vertical industry), so presumably I can't reveal that either (and I'm sure signed something to that effect). Like at Microsoft, I have an office with a door; I would guess maybe half the developers do, and there are some open plan or shared offices. (Unlike at Microsoft, I also have a window outside—but no window to the hallway—which is nice, but it gets pretty hot at certain times of the day.) I'm working in C++ (also safe, since their job descriptions say as much), Windows (MFC projects, but it's not so bad). There's no problem parking in front of the building (which you can go find with Google Street View if you want). I tend to get in earlier than at Microsoft (0830 here, 1030 there), to be there when most people are there, and of course leave a little earlier too. It brings back memories of getting up pretty early when I worked in Toronto, to avoid the subway rush. I'm not sure I can say which project I'm working on, so I'll provide a link to the Learning Systems Group and leave it at that.
As in Word, the code base is quite old (20 years I think, vs. Word celebrating 25 in 2010), and has naturally developed some cruft. Fortunately, my manager believes in continuous refactoring, provided that features get developed according to schedule and there's some business justification. Some interesting features for the upcoming release—naturally I can't spill anything there, but I'll post something after we ship if I can be at all specific. I'm working with a good group of people; only one of the people that interviewed me, though (and the interviews asked good questions). We go out to lunch a couple times a week; frequently Mexican-style places (but usually not staffed with people of Mexicans descent; not far enough south perhaps?), although there's one guy that's more adventurous and we go for Thai etc.
After hours and when I have time I've been working on a code review tool (Apache, mod_wsgi, Python 3, Javascript, and PostgreSQL, with Mako templates for separation, jQuery and jQuery UI on the client side, and mod_auth_sspi for domain user authentication; the username is used by the system). Since it's server-based, I can and may also write a .NET—WPF—client for it; except for one request that sends back XHTML rather than JSON (it helped with SPOT), all of the server requests are already suitable, and WPF looks like a fun toy and a good technology to learn. I could also maintain a persistent server connection to get immediate updates rather than polling periodically like the web client does.
So, Florida. We haven't done a lot of traveling yet; the apartment, once organized, is about the same. The bedroom furniture was a bit of a trick to get in since the door is diagonal and cuts off one side, but it's all worked out just fine. We solved the sliding block puzzle of the living room after the movers left and it's spaced pretty well. There are a few boxes here and there and the study isn't set up—we just use our laptops on the couch—so other unpacking happens as the spirit moves. We've found the equivalent stores for groceries, and a Costco, and Amazon doesn't charge tax here so that's a bonus. In a way it's nice to have a garage, but since our other exclusive parking space is in front of it, sometimes not as convenient to get in and out. We'd like to take a drive down to the Keys; after the first time for the novelty, though, we've been recommended to take the ferry. In May we're heading up to Canada for Sharon's wedding anniversary; no big trips before that, except Honey might go up for her mother's birthday in March.
I finally got around to finishing and submitting my article for the journal Libertarian Papers; I'm happy with it, although they (or rather, the new editor, Matt McCaffrey, who took over for Dr. Stephan Kinsella just this month) may have a few editorial or style changes for me to make still. It's good to get that finished; Dr. Kinsella had recommended some style fixes, terminology clarifications, and further reading I may have wanted to incorporate; I made the style fixes right away but just got the rest done this weekend. It's an article about punishment, specifically questioning one aspect of Dr. Walter Block's ideas on the subject.
It is also my birthday tomorrow. We're going to go out to eat at the end of the week.
Books finished: Foundation, The Colour of Magic, God Emperor of Dune.
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