One of my favorite authors is Terry Pratchett. He is amazingly prolific and his books seem to just keep getting better over time. Pratchett’s latest book is Making Money which is the second book featuring Moist von Lipwig, the criminal who was forced to create the postal system for Ankh-Morpork in Going Postal. All of this makes it sound difficult to approach for someone not familiar with the Discworld novels. Here are two reasons why you should read Pratchett:

• He’s one of the all-time funniest novelists
• The novels are “About Something”. In addition to being hilarious, the novels take some event in history or some aspect of contemporary culture and remap them on into the context of a fantasy civilization.

It may be daunting to approach a series of more than 40 books, but the good news is with Pratchett you can pick up any of the books and still enjoy it outside the context of the other books. If you want a more guided approach, there is a reading order guide (PDF version) which recommends several entry points to the series and where to go from there.

I finally got a chance to see a couple of Judd Apatow movies that I’ve been meaning to see: The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. I enjoyed both of them very much. Something interesting was that despite being two very vulgar (though hilariously funny!) movies that my more conservative friends and family members wouldn’t like, they had really warm-hearted and very conservative values at their core.

This movie is not for everyone. In a lot of respects, it is beyond offensive. However, if you view it as a live-action cartoon, it is highly over-the-top and entertaining. This movie is for the people who enjoy Hong Kong style action and can find humor in the macabre. I laughed through just about the entire thing. There isn’t a down moment in the movie - it is non-stop action.

Additional warning: about 10 minutes into the movie, David leaned over and said “This is the most fouled up movie I’ve ever seen.”*

• Or something like that.

You don’t get to kill my cow. (via Instapundit)

I’m finally getting around to joining Technorati. Here is my Technorati Profile.

Inspired by an XKCD comic strip, several people have secretly brought chessboards onto roller coasters and gotten photos of the results.

One of the guys at work passed the link to this ACM article by Philippe Kruchten entitled Voyage in the Agile Memeplex (Direct links: HTML, PDF). I found the article so preposterous that I had to reply back with responses to the group at work and thought I might add it here as well.

Some thoughts…

re: Agile as culture:

“The same applies to agility; since there is not a clear underlying science or a well-packaged body of knowledge, much of it is really transmitted by oral tradition and by imitation (i.e., learning to do something by seeing it being done).”

This is incorrect. There are any number of references in books, magazines, and of course, on the web regarding agile practices. To imply that to learn agile requires a “long education process, beginning at a very young age” is simply ludicrous.  In response to:

“We can observe some of this in the agile world, where people say or write things such as ‘this is very waterfall’ when often they have never seen a waterfall project.”

Whew! I must be the exception because, I’ve worked on several Waterfall projects (including a few relatively well run ones).  re: Agility as a Memeplex

Much of what is said here about agile methodologies could apply to any methodology or process. The author doesn’t explain why agile methodologies are particularly susceptible to miscommunication based on differing assumptions.

re: Decontexualization

Ah! Here we have it! Those agile methodology books are just too darn short! The author also seems to imply that it’s unfair to judge poorly run waterfall projects, but poorly run agile projects are fair game.

re: Agilese

Thank the heavens that no other technology oriented methodologies use jargon!

re: Agilism

“little underlying theory or systematic organization of knowledge?”

I’m beginning to suspect that the author has not read any of the agile literature. Certainly both the “Extreme Programming Explained” and “Crystal Clear” books (being two handy ones on my desk at the moment) explain the rationale for all of the process components that he cites. Agile Alliance members also seem to me to be uncharacteristically open to criticism.

This section also seems to imply that the agile community is rather insular. On the contrary, my first exposure to XP concepts was at the 2001 Software Developers conference – a fairly broad cross-section of the industry.

I wonder if this author is opposed to agile methodologies because they come from the business world rather than academia? Certainly academic papers on agile lag behind the “popular” literature on the subject.

re: Agilitis

Wow – now we get personal. Apparently people who have studied and practiced some form of agile methodology are victims of delusion. The author again ignores the research, experimentation, and work experience that the various agile authors have brought to their work. The author finds evidence that he is right in “nasty” responses he received on Internet forums. Unheard of!

re: Agilology

Now the author moves on to question any studies that have been done. Is he working towards stating that no software methodology could possibly work?

re: Context, Context, Context

Was this written by the same individual? It’s hard to argue against using the correct context to explain when or why a particular approach may be appropriate. I haven’t seen any agile references that state it is the “one true methodology”.

re: Cooler Heads Must Prevail

Translation: I really only wrote this because some agile proponents were mean to me at a conference and on Usenet.



I’ve been meaning to post on this since prior to ACL Fest, but here at last is a brief comment or two.

3:10 to Yuma is an excellent western. It doesn’t play revisionist history with the feeling of bad men or downplay the level of violence. The characters are excellently played - great performances from Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. Peter Fonda is hard to recognize as the bounty hunter Byron McElroy but he plays the part well.

This was definitely one of the best westerns in many years. The only thing to compare it to lately is “Unforgiven”, but I liked Yuma even better.

This is just too cool. I’m guessing the manner the girls were “inappropriately dressed” was a bit of ankle showing or perhaps a few stray strands of hair.

I’ll go with the linked commentator by saying: YouTube, please!

I’m back from ACL Fest this past weekend which I managed to not only survive, but enjoy every minute of.

ACL Fest is a yearly music festival thrown by the city of Austin and the Austin City Limits live music show on PBS. The festival attracts 60,000-65,000 people each day of its three day running time. Apparently a few years ago, it ran even larger, but the city began limiting ticket sales to keep the festival enjoyable for the crowd. The festival is held in the beautiful Zilker Park just south of Town Lake in south Austin.

First the good and bad about the festival. I was amazed at how well run everything was. The shuttle buses from downtown Austin ran constantly - I never had to wait for a bus to get to the festival (though we did go early each day which probably helped). The entrance gates ran quickly and smoothly. The crowd was exceptionally well behaved especially considering the relative lack of visible security. The food was priced about average for festival fare, but was of better quality than most due to its being produced by some great Austin restaurants.

The only bad things were: The heat (which can’t be helped this time of year). The average high temperature was 95 F each day - which was pretty uncomfortable from 1:00 PM until 5:00 PM. The sound from the AT&T Blue Room stage was cranked up on Saturday and Sunday and overwhelmed the acts playing at the Austin Ventures stage - which was an annoyance since I usually preferred the acts at the Austin Ventures stage. A minor quibble was the length of the walk back to board buses, but given the size of the crowd, I understand the necessity of a larger staging area.

About the music. One of the tragedies of ACL Fest is that there is so much great music, you have to make choices about what to see. With eight stages going simultaneously, you will invariably have two or more acts you really want to see playing at the same time. Check out the lineup.

Friday:

Sound & the Jury Contest Winner: Homer Hiccolm & the Rocketboys

A well polished rock & roll band.

The Greyhounds

Very cool funk band.

Jesse Malin

These guys were one of Virgie’s favorites. NYC based rock & roll in the Bruce Springsteen mold. A solid band.

Heartless Bastards

We just caught a little of this show, but I was impressed. Great rock & roll - great vocalist and good songs.

Will Hoge

This was one of my favorites for the first day. Will Hoge writes great songs not too far off from Tom Petty and Roger Clyne. The band is tight and puts on a great show. Referring to the butane tank that exploded minutes earlier, Will said “I feel bad for the people whose trailer burned. I’m from Tennessee and I know what that’s like.” Will Hoge’s cd was one that I purchased at Waterloo records this weekend.

Big Sam’s Funky Nation

Another great funk band - led by a great trombone player.

Queens of the Stone Age

This was my other favorite of the day. They played a great set. I bought their latest cd also.

Revered Horton Heat

I really wanted to see this band, but we were getting pretty worn out already and couldn’t get close enough to the stage to hear well. What I could hear sounded good. Cool psychobilly music played with lots of attitude.

The Killers

This was the first and only disappointment for me. I like a few of The Killers songs, but I wasn’t crazy about their performance. Their vocalist had a lot of stage moves between various microphones and locations on the stage and I think all of the movement had a negative affect on his vocals. I would have preferred him to stay in one spot and focus on sounding good. We left after a few songs to go check out Bjork.

Bjork

I was curious to see what Bjork would do, so before leaving, we walked over to her stage. We didn’t stay long because it was too weird for Virgie and we were tired. What we saw was just like if you were in a Star Trek episode, went to an alien planet and attended a concert there.

Saturday:

Dr. Dog

Good stuff.

Raul Malo

Cool mix of classic Texas dance hall country with latin influences. Very cool.

Back Door Slam

Fantastic electric blues. If you love Stevie Ray Vaughn, you’ll love this - reminiscent, but not derivative. Good vocals also. This was one of the good surprises of the day.

Steve Earle

I’d never seen Steve Earle before. He played his first half solo on a 12-string, then brought out a DJ with a turntable to spin beats while he played his newer stuff on top. I’ve never heard that combination before.

Blue October

Good rock and roll, but we didn’t want to press up into the crowd enough to get close.

Butch Walker and the Let’s Go Out Tonites!’

This was a pleasant surprise. Butch Walker really knows how to get a crowd worked up. He had most of the crowd dancing as goofy as possible (on purpose) during one song. The band is a lot of fun with dancing backup singers. The show reminded me of both 50’s rock and 70’s glam with a little taste of Rocky Horror fun.

Jeffrey Steele

This was a great show - and apparently no one expected it. We were able to walk right up to the front of the stage and sit down. After the band began playing, a much larger crowd gathered. Excellent fun songs. Great song writing and performances. Jeffrey Steele has made a name as a songwriter for a lot of the top tier country acts. His music in person is more rock and roll with a country influence - kind of like Creedence. He somehow managed to throw in partial versions of “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, “Wild Thing”, “Black Dog”, and “Whole Lotta Love” into the middle of one of his songs.

Cross Canadian Ragweed

These guys are high energy country rock. Good stuff.

Muse

This is the show that blew me away. Apparently I’m entering the early stages of geezerdom because I hadn’t heard of this band (lousy San Antonio radio stations don’t help). Really cool rock/electronica with influences from Queen and Iron Maiden while sounding totally modern. Matthew Bellamy is a great player on both keyboard and especially on guitar. I’ve been wearing out their latest CD: Black Holes and Revelations.

Sunday:

Yo La Tengo

These guys played a wide variety of music that was fun to hear. They ended with a 10 minute piece that started as loops built up on stage and ended as Sonic Youth style noise which Virgie didn’t care for.

The National

The National was really good stuff. Kind of like rock and roll for adults.

Ben Kweller

Ben was one of the highlights of the day. Great songs and a really good band. I was especially impressed with the tight vocal harmonies.

Midlake

This band had a good sound, but were a little mellow for what we wanted at that point of the day.

Lucinda Williams

I’ve heard a lot about Lucinda (and had heard several of her songs), but somehow I was a little surprised at her delivery on stage. Good bar room country. It wasn’t our thing either, so we left after 3-4 songs.

Bloc Party

This was more like it. We were kind of far back to really get into the music, but Bloc Party was a lot of fun. I’d definitely go see them again.

Rose Hill Drive

This was another fun band. Riff oriented southern blues/rock. I got a kick out of their songs. During the show, the bassist was having trouble with his bass. He had to switch out basses twice and announced: “That’s ok, I’m going to persevere and after the show, I’m going to smash that f** bass!” A highlight for the crowd was seeing him come back on stage after the show and, true to his word, smash the bass to pieces and hand them out to the crowd.

Wilco

Wilco was good in a mellow jam band kind of way. A very tight band.

Ziggy Marley

I could hear a little of Ziggy in between other bands. Good rhythms - nice sound. I wish I had heard more.

The Decemberists

The Decemberists were the last band we heard. Not too much to say about them, but I liked their sound and I’ll have to look up some of their work on CD.

We left the park before Bob Dylan came on stage. We were both pretty tired at this point and I was a little leery of the size of the crowd around one stage and what the situation would be like trying to leave.

It was a great trip and I’m definitely going to try and go next year.