December 2006 Archives

As much as I enjoyed Tidwell's Bayou Farewell, I expected to enjoy The Ravaging Tide too. However, I couldn't even finish it; the tone was just too preachy. Tidwell makes some important points about the importance of coastal cities (and wetlands) to the American economy, and he lays out a pretty good case for why all Americans should care. However, that wasn't enough to get me to finish. Maybe I'll give it another try at some future time.

I wish I'd thought of this; Martin "MC" Brown has a great tip for improving the performance of Parallels virtual machines running under Mac OS X. I'll be trying this as soon as I can shut down my VM.

Four Days to Veracruz : A Novel is one of the most vivid thrillers I've ever read-- and I read a lot of 'em.

The author, Owen West, is a serving Marine officer who's also an adventure racer (think Eco Challenge). He draws on both those skill sets for this book, which tells the story of a newlywed couple who accidentally trespass on a Mexican drug lord's estancia and are held hostage. They manage to escape, killing the drug lord in the process, but when they go to the local police their real problems start. Fortunately, the newlyweds are both adventure racers, and the husband is a Marine infantry officer (the husband and his best friend, Gavin Kelly, are both return characters from West's Sharkman Six).

West did a great job with pacing and plotting, and his descriptions of the physiology and psychology of adventure endurance racing are interesting in themselves. There are many minor implausibilities (not the least of which is the inclusion of an Aztec serial killer as a foil for the chase), but they're outweighed by West's skill at moving the story along. Highly recommended.

It's not really a 360 achievement; it's because of the Wii.

Bill Gates has a new job. Dial 425 707 7500 to find out what it is.

Original poem by Michael Marks:

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
my daughter beside me, angelic in rest.

Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree, I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.

My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep
in perfect contentment, or so it would seem.
So I slumbered, perhaps I started to dream.

The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too near,
But I opened my eye when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn't quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.

My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
and I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.

A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.

"What are you doing?" I asked without fear
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"

For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts,
to the window that danced with a warm fire's light
then he sighed and he said "It's really all right,
I'm out here by choice. I'm here every night"

"Its my duty to stand at the front of the line,
that separates you from the darkest of times.
No one had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my fathers before me.

My Gramps died at 'Pearl on a day in December,"
then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of 'Nam
And now it is my turn and so, here I am.

I've not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's sure got her smile.
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red white and blue... an American flag.

"I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home,
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat,
I can carry the weight of killing another
or lay down my life with my sisters and brothers
who stand at the front against any and all,
to insure for all time that this flag will not fall."

"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."

Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget
To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone.
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.

For when we come home, either standing or dead,
to know you remember we fought and we bled
is payment enough, and with that we will trust.
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us."

When I get super busy, the first thing to go is the Xbox 360; the second is this blog. That explains my relative silence. I'm trying to finish up a large project at work before the end of the year; last week I was in Seattle and Toronto, plus we had a major power outage in Redmond that slowed my progress down considerably.

Plus, let's not forget, it's the Christmas season! That means lots of evening time spent wrapping, shopping, going to chorus concerts, and so on. I have a couple of book reviews to post, but I probably won't get to them for a few days. In the meantime, Merry Christmas to all!

Last year, I made a bet with some folks over at Ed's blog:

@5: I'll take that bet, Bill. I've got $20 that says MS will only ship 64-bit production versions of E12 (although they will probably ship test / demo versions that run on 32-bit hardware). If I'm right, you pay Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans $20; if you're right, I'll pay the $20 to a charity of your choice. In fact, I'll take up to 5 identical bets. Ante up!

Today Microsoft released Exchange 2007 to manufacturing, which I'd say counts as "shipping" it. As I predicted last year, they're only shipping 64-bit versions; there will be a limited-use 32-bit version that is not licensed for use in production, but MS hasn't announced how or when they'll make it available. By my lights, that means that Ed, Mike Lazar, and Bill Buchan each owe the New Orleans chapter of Habitat for Humanity $20.

Just got a press release from MS' PR firm: Exchange 2007 releases to manufacturing tomorrow, 8 December. (So does Forefront Security for Exchange server, btw). Happy news! Congratulations to the team.

Technorati Tags: Collaboration, Exchange 2007

This is perhaps the most interesting book I've read in the last few years, right up there with Freakonomics. I've written briefly about Brian Wansink before, and I'm pleased to report that his book matches my initial impression of his work: it's a neat hack. Wansink's basic theorem is that, because there are so many environmental factors that influence how much people eat, you can manage your weight simply by juggling those factors to work in your favor. I tried using a smaller dinner plate for about a week and found that-- sure enough-- I did eat less, even though I didn't feel hungry or deprived.

There are a ton of interesting anecdotes in the book, but Wansink is careful to knit them together into a simple plan: slightly change your eating habits as he suggests, and you'll lose weight slowly (he proposes a simple estimate: cut N calories per day and you'll lose N/10 pounds in a year). His focus is on weight management through environmental and portion control, which I think is pretty sound. Interestingly, there's a good bit of overlap with The Hacker's Diet, at least in terms of Wansink's emphasis on gradual weight reduction instead of sudden changes in eating habits.

Wansink also engages in some pretty cool mythbusting; for example, he compares the number of calories people consumed with the number they thought they were eating at both Subway and McDonald's. Result: people who ate at Subway, which heavily promotes its food as healthy, underestimated the number of calories they actually ate by as much as 20%. Oops.

Highly recommended as a fun read; the more so if you're actually trying to control your weight.