It was a good race but it was won on strategy, so there was not much on track action. Both Barrichello and Button delivered on their end by driving faultlessly. Hamilton made an error which cost him third place. I get that he is a racer but did he really think that he had a chance to catch and pass Button? Force India qualified second which once again showed how good their car is, but again ended up stuck behind a Ferrari to much of the race, much like what happened at Spa.
Redbull had a terrible weekend which has all but killed Vettel's and Webber's championship aspirations. Redbull still have a mathematical chance of winning the constructor's title but only if Brawn GP scores no points, which is not very likely. Ross Brawn is feeling confident enough that he is willing to let Button and Barrichello have a straight fight for the driver's championship.
The bad news for Barrichello is that Button seems to be back on form. Barrichello has a mathematical chance to win the championship, but that requires Button to have problems in the final races. Barrichello is going to need some luck to pull this off.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Hobbies
I seriously need to get back to my personal projects. I haven't touched any of them in a long while. It is always annoying when that happens. An even greater annoyance is deciding which project to resume. Do you return to the one that is the most advanced or the one that is most interesting? I usually go with the latter since it offers greater motivation to get started. Of course, the worst case is something completely new has come along in the mean time and I jump on that because simply because it is new and shiny.
Having hobbies is both a blessing and a curse. ^_^
Having hobbies is both a blessing and a curse. ^_^
Saturday, September 12, 2009
The Sarah Jane Adventures
I just finished watching the second series of The Sarah Jane Adventures, another Doctor Who spin off. Although The Sarah Jane Adventures (SJA) is targeted at a younger audience, I enjoyed it very much. Sarah Jane is easily my favourite companion, even though she travelled with the Doctor for only a short time.
A few stories in the SJA series are connected to events in the current Doctor Who series but most stories are original and separate. My favourite from series two was The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith which showed that she is not without weaknesses.
There is a third series airing in the Autumn and David Tennant will appear as the Doctor in one story. Awesome! There no air date yet so I'll definitely have to keep an eye on that.
A few stories in the SJA series are connected to events in the current Doctor Who series but most stories are original and separate. My favourite from series two was The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith which showed that she is not without weaknesses.
There is a third series airing in the Autumn and David Tennant will appear as the Doctor in one story. Awesome! There no air date yet so I'll definitely have to keep an eye on that.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Vampire Knight Guilty
Vampire Knight Guilty is the sequel to Vampire Knight and as such you need to watch both to understand the story. Now, it is a great story, but there is so much angst, introspection, and hand wringing, it feels like a classic Swedish film at times.
The story centers on Cross Yuki, a student at Cross Academy, a boarding school run by her adopted father. The school is unusual because it has special night classes for a group of vampire students. The school is an experiment to see if vampires and humans can coexist. Yuki is a guardian and is supposed to keep the day class and night class from interacting but this isn't so easy. The vampires have that supernatural charm which the day students find irresistible. ^_^
Yuki has no memory before ten years ago when she attacked by a vampire. She was saved by another vampire, Kaname Kuran, who brought her to Cross Academy. Yuki is troubled by the memory loss and always feels that there some dark secret in her past. She is right. But the truth was such a complete surprise to me that it made the whole series worthwhile.
Interwoven with Yuki's story is a complex back story about the vampire hierarchy and an organization of vampire hunters. All of this comes crashing together in a mostly satisfying ending. I say "mostly" because there is at least one major loose end, which suggests a possible third season.
The story centers on Cross Yuki, a student at Cross Academy, a boarding school run by her adopted father. The school is unusual because it has special night classes for a group of vampire students. The school is an experiment to see if vampires and humans can coexist. Yuki is a guardian and is supposed to keep the day class and night class from interacting but this isn't so easy. The vampires have that supernatural charm which the day students find irresistible. ^_^
Yuki has no memory before ten years ago when she attacked by a vampire. She was saved by another vampire, Kaname Kuran, who brought her to Cross Academy. Yuki is troubled by the memory loss and always feels that there some dark secret in her past. She is right. But the truth was such a complete surprise to me that it made the whole series worthwhile.
Interwoven with Yuki's story is a complex back story about the vampire hierarchy and an organization of vampire hunters. All of this comes crashing together in a mostly satisfying ending. I say "mostly" because there is at least one major loose end, which suggests a possible third season.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Veteran's Stories
There is new web site, The Memory Project, which will maintain an audio archive of Canadian WWII veterans' stories. This is important as that time fades further into history. I only wish this effort had started earlier so that it could have captured some the memories of the WWI veterans, who are now almost all gone.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
WRC Australia
If I ignore Citroen's technical irregularities, this was a really good rally. Loeb was was definitely back on form and Sordo seemed to be driving better than Hirvonen. Wait, that doesn't sound right.
Several times during the rally, I wondered how come Hirvonen was suddenly fighting with Sordo for second place. And he was working really hard for it too, with several scary moments which, I must say, he recovered in an almost Loeb-esque style.
While the Citroen insist that the different part had no effect on the performance, it might explain how Sordo could suddenly becoming Hirvonen's equal. However, I doubt that they would have done it intentionally and then expected it to pass the scrutineers. So it was more likely a mistake but one that could very well cost Loeb the championship. At the beginning of the season, I predicted Loeb would run away with it. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Henning Solberg was asked, how difficult is it driving without a windscreen? It's easier with the windscreen, he deadpans. But at least there was no snow this time. It's the third time he has lost the windscreen this season, so he has been getting a lot of practice driving without one.
And finally, Petter Solberg is back for the final two rallies in a 2008 C4! This is going to be great!
Several times during the rally, I wondered how come Hirvonen was suddenly fighting with Sordo for second place. And he was working really hard for it too, with several scary moments which, I must say, he recovered in an almost Loeb-esque style.
While the Citroen insist that the different part had no effect on the performance, it might explain how Sordo could suddenly becoming Hirvonen's equal. However, I doubt that they would have done it intentionally and then expected it to pass the scrutineers. So it was more likely a mistake but one that could very well cost Loeb the championship. At the beginning of the season, I predicted Loeb would run away with it. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Henning Solberg was asked, how difficult is it driving without a windscreen? It's easier with the windscreen, he deadpans. But at least there was no snow this time. It's the third time he has lost the windscreen this season, so he has been getting a lot of practice driving without one.
And finally, Petter Solberg is back for the final two rallies in a 2008 C4! This is going to be great!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Software Maintenance
The full title of David Collier-Brown's talk at this month's GTALUG meeting is "You don't know jack about Software Maintenance." To the typical manager (aka PHB) software maintenance is something you do after the project is in production. As any experienced programmer will tell you, this is completely and utterly false. Maintenance starts during development. The XP crowd even explicitly say that development is maintenance.
David shared some of his experience of how you design your software to be maintainable from the beginning. He used a real world example of a versioned structure from when he was developing Multics. Yes, he goes back that far. ^_^ David's final piece of advice was: don't tell the PHB that you are doing maintenance during development.
It was interesting have a programming oriented talk at GTALUG for a change.
David shared some of his experience of how you design your software to be maintainable from the beginning. He used a real world example of a versioned structure from when he was developing Multics. Yes, he goes back that far. ^_^ David's final piece of advice was: don't tell the PHB that you are doing maintenance during development.
It was interesting have a programming oriented talk at GTALUG for a change.
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