|
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Thursday Thoughts
Pi Day
Is it just me or did "Pi Day" get a lot more publicity this
year than it has in the past?
And I'm not saying that's a good thing. When normal people
try to act like geeks the result looks just as dumb as when we try to look
normal. Case in point: On the local six o'clock news last night they did a
piece on "Pi Day". After the segment, the anchor rhetorically asked, "So does
anyone actually know what comes after 3.14?"
Suddenly, Neville the sports guy started rattling off
digits. You could tell the whole thing was unscripted, because it took half a
second for the camera to shift over to him.
Unfortunately, those digits were just plain wrong. You see,
30 years ago while Neville was playing shortstop for his little league team, I
was memorizing Pi. Trust me, Neville's ratio of circumference to diameter is a
recipe for all kinds of engineering disasters.
After the newscast, I asked my Labrador retriever to recite
Pi. She got the same number of digits correct as Neville did.
I don't go around trying to impress people with my athletic
abilities. Neville should stick to sports reporting.
Call me "Coach Bolton"
So I turned 39 years old today. That means I've got one
year left to do all the things I thought I would do before I was 40. I better
get busy.
As if I don't have enough reason to feel old today, this
afternoon I've got rehearsal for the school musical. Yes, you read that right
-- I'm in the school musical. My 7th grade daughter's school is
doing a production of Disney's "High School Musical". It's a school musical
about a school doing a school musical. I agreed to play the role of Coach
Bolton. I haven't done theatre in 20 years, but how could I turn down a recursive
musical?
The problem with rehearsal is that I am easily the oldest
person in the room. There will be 50 people in that auditorium and I will be
significantly older than the combined ages of any two others, including the
teacher who's directing the show. Oh well, at least I get to huff around and
overact. Character parts are fun.
Fortress 1.0 Preview
My birthday present from SourceGear today is the first
preview release of SourceGear Fortress. The bits are being finalized this
afternoon, but we'll let them cool over the weekend before releasing them to
the public. On Tuesday of next week, this early look at our new ALM
(Application Lifecycle Management) tool will be available for download on the
SourceGear website. As I always say, I love shipping software
products. Preview releases like this one are a step on the path, a sign that
we're getting close to the end of the cycle.
| 
