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April 28, 2005
Very Cool Web Standards Test
http://webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html#top
Posted by mishkin at 11:02 AM
April 26, 2005
My Brother in the News
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-04/21/content_436114.htm
Posted by mishkin at 06:18 AM
Scrum Master Practicing
I've just been listed on the Control Chaos web site as a Scrum Master Practicing. My agile resume has been updated.
Posted by mishkin at 12:16 AM
April 24, 2005
The Center of the World
Justice asked me if the Earth has a center. I talked about the center of the sphere. He pointed out that if you are on the surface, you are at the center of the surface. That was cool.
We went to see Robots yesterday. It was fun to go with Justice and Haifa. We played a bit in the arcade before the movie started. They liked the movie, but I don't think it was as big a hit as The Incredibles. Certainly I didn't like it as much.
Posted by mishkin at 09:33 PM
April 20, 2005
My Garden
I've been thinking about the landscaping and gardening I am going to do at our new house. I've built a preliminary model of my garden in PovRay and rendered it to get a sense of how it will look. Here it is:
Posted by mishkin at 12:32 AM
April 18, 2005
Satellite Image of My Home
Courtesy of Google Maps. To find our house... There is a major street going roughly N-S. There is also a street coming from the East and ending in a "T" at the N-S street. We are on the West side of that intersection. We're the upside-down "L" shaped house in the very center.
Oh, and here's the Chicago Temple.
Oh, and here's where I lived and worked in Jersey City.
Posted by mishkin at 10:52 AM
April 17, 2005
God, Police and a Movie
A few hours ago, Cal and I were sitting quietly at a cafe, talking. I noticed the time and realized that we had 5 minutes to get to our movie. Cal and I jumped in my rented Corolla and sped off. Along the Kingsway, I joked with Cal "We're on a mission from God. Speeding is okay and we'll get there with time to spare." I'm weaving through traffic, going 80k in a 60k zone. I pass a large white Suburban-style truck only to get stuck behind a slow-moving car. A few seconds later I notice lights flashing in my rear-view mirror. The white truck was a cop. So I flash my turning signal on, slow down and pull over into a side street. The conversation went something like this:
Cop: "Some sort of emergency?"
Me: "No."
Cop: "Did you know you were going eighty in a sixty zone?"
Me: "I didn't realized I was going that fast sir."
Cop: "Can I see your driver's license and registration please."
Me: "Sure, the car's rented." (hand over docs)
Cop: "You didn't notice my marked police truck?"
Me: "No sir."
Cop: "You just weren't paying attention."
Cop goes away for a few seconds, probably checking license and registration. Comes back.
Cop: "Where were you going in such a hurry?"
Me: "We're late for a movie."
Cop: "You realize that's a $110 ticket and 3 points?"
Cop hands me my docs and walks away.
No ticket. Mission from God, indeed.... but I guess I have to appreciate the humorous warning from on High.
Posted by mishkin at 12:27 AM
April 13, 2005
Minor update to my resume
People probably don't care, but I've made a minor update to my "agile resume" on my web site.
Posted by mishkin at 08:11 AM
April 12, 2005
I took the Nerd Test
Posted by mishkin at 11:02 PM
April 11, 2005
Canadian Association of Physicists Contest 1989
Just found this: http://www.cap.ca/edu/HSPrize/1989HSResults.html which reminds me that I came in 2nd in Saskatchewan in the contest and won $250.00. Physics, my lost career :-)
Posted by mishkin at 12:08 AM
April 10, 2005
Excellent article about Copyright, Music and P2P in Canada
http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_4/geist/
Posted by mishkin at 10:17 PM
April 09, 2005
Gardening and Landscaping
Today I bought a cool laser level for doing my landscaping for oue front yard. It is a simple class II laser with a mount and a tripod. The mount is three-point adjustable level with a bulls-eye bubble, much like a mount for a surveyor's transit. The set cost me $50.00. I'm going to build my own vertical height stick by using a 1x2 piece of wood, mounting a metric scale to it and a bulls-eye level bubble. This will allow me to create very accurate grades. Im going to have to adjust the drainage in my front yard by creating a rock stream bed.
Posted by mishkin at 07:18 PM
April 06, 2005
Launch of AgileAdvice.com Blog
Two days ago I set up the AgileAdvice.com blog. It will be a professional blog about Agile Work including of course Agile Software Development. Both my dad Garry Berteig and my friend and co-worker Christian Gruber will be contributors. I have already posted one entry about how lean queueing theory applies to agile product backlogs.
Posted by mishkin at 11:31 PM
Crazy stuff about words in the English language
http://members.aol.com/gulfhigh2/words.html
Posted by mishkin at 03:00 PM
April 05, 2005
A Book and a Movie
I finished reading "1421 - The Year China Discovered America". This is an excellent book that seems to conclusively demonstrate that the Chinese had explored the entire world and even set up colonies throughout North and South America. Evidence includes maps from pre-Columbus time of North America, lingustics, plant species, and artifacts. Fun reading and I'm not a history buff.
I also watched "Logan's Run". Pretty middle-of-the-road, and definitely mid-seventies pre-Star Wars quality special effects. The acting is good at points, but mostly terrible. The story is strong for most of the movie, but the ending disappointed me.
Posted by mishkin at 12:35 AM
April 03, 2005
Playing in the (bizarre) snow
Yesterday and today it snowed constantly. It accumulated to about 12cm this morning. So, given that it was also slightly above freezing, there was only one thing to do: play in the snow. Justice and Haifa and I got all bundled up and went outside. First we made a normal snowman on the deck. Justice made the head. Then, we walked around front and had a little adventure getting the mail - it was a long walk for Haifa. We held hands because she was tired. Justice spent most of the time running ahead, throwing snow into the ditch and generally having a fun time independent of us purpose-driven folks. I thought Haifa would go in at this point, but she insisted that she wanted to play outside more. So we went back into the back yard. I decided that I wanted to make a _really_ big snowball. I started at the very back of the yard since there is a nice long strait stretch with uninterrupted pristine snow. I rolled for a little while and then Haifa noticed I was doing something interesting. She came and helped me by pushing and also by adding snow to the ball so that it was a smooth round shape. I decided that I would make it into a big wheel. By time it was about a meter in diameter, Justice came to help as well. When we finished up, it was a big disk about 70cm thick and 1.5m in diameter. I tipped it on its side. And then I made another one, also with the help of the kids. I tipped this second one so that it was leaning on the first. Made a pretty tall pile of snow for the kids to climb on. Unfortunately by that point we were all pretty much soaking wet. So we came inside. Since the temperature is forecast to go up to about 10C tomorrow, I doubt the snow disks will last long.
Posted by mishkin at 09:33 PM