WordCamp Vancouver

Posted on June 13, 2010 by Duane Storey

Well, that’s a wrap. WordCamp Vancouver went off yesterday without a hitch, and it seemed to be very well received. It was hard for me not to contrast yesterday’s experience with WordCamp Whistler, since that one was comparable in terms of size and planning. They were both unique, so I can’t say one was better than the other, but they were definitely both a lot of fun.

WordCamp Vancouver was a bit more grass roots than WordCamp Whistler I think, partially because the conference was split between three areas instead of just one. I actually liked that about it, and it was nice to have people wondering around the museum and having their own mini-socials throughout the day.

There were a bunch of highlights for me throughout the weekend:

1) A couple of the sponsors came up afterwards, excited about the exposure they got and the contacts they made during the event. As an organizer, it’s great to hear that your sponsors found real value in their sponsorship

2) A couple people came up to me and said they had initial misgivings about the event, but wanted to show up anyways. Everyone I talked to like that seemed to have been won over, learning something new during the conferences, or interacting with new people at the social

3) Quite a few people commented that the were surprised how much they got for their ticket. Thanks to sponsorship, we were able to provide day-long coffee, pop, muffins, cookies, a full sushi-based lunch, a day long conference with 11 speakers, and a fully paid for social event in Granville Island. Pretty good value if you ask me.

4) Out of towners. Quite a few people were from out of town. A few people were from Seattle, at least one person from the Okanagan, two people from the Portland area, and my personal favourite, the guy who flew out from Malta (nearly 24 hours of traveling) to be at WordCamp Vancouver.


Photo by John Biehler

It was a great time, and it was awesome hanging out with everyone yesterday. I’m officially glad to be on the other side or WordCamp now, since I’m looking forward to camping and doing a bit of relaxing in the next few weeks. I woke up this morning and only had 3 emails in my Inbox, which is nice compared to the 30 or so I was waking up to in the last few days about the event.

So thanks everyone for coming out, and for making it a great event.

Posted in Bits and Bites | Tagged | 2 Comments

Focus

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Duane Storey

I’ve been busy lately, busier in fact that I’ve been in quite some time. WPtouch 2.0 Pro has been a lot of work and a lot of fun, and we’re getting ready to release it shortly. If you’re interested in checking it out, sign up for updates.

WordCamp Vancouver is this weekend as well, and the last week especially has been a lot of work. The event is shaping up to be really great, so I’m definitely looking forward to being there. That said, I’m also looking forward to being on the other side of it so I can get back into my normal routine. With everything going on these last few weeks, I haven’t really been sleeping as much as my body would like. As a result I find I’m pretty drained, and have unfortunately been relying pretty heavy on caffeine, something I’m looking forward to reducing again shortly.

I haven’t had a real break since my trip to Punta Cana at the end of November, so I’m looking forward to having a little downtime. If the weather is nice next week, I’ll probably head up to the lake and spend a few nights by a campfire. I have a family camping trip coming up in a few weeks that should be fun, as well as a few random weeks off in the coming months.

As soon as I have a bit of free time, I’m going to change things around here. In fact, given that I don’t really need this site to help get jobs or to have my resume online, I’m thinking about getting rid of it entirely. I still like writing, and plan to do some more, but I’d actually like to start with a clean slate, and start writing content that’s a bit more focused. For example, I really enjoy writing about finances and business, so I’d like to start writing more routinely in that area. I’m pretty fond of how Posterous works, so I may try using that for a while. But who knows.

I’ve also been seriously debating killing my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Truthfully, I don’t really see a lot of value in either of them these days, and find that in both cases they are pretty big distractions. I’ve been trying to reduce all my notifications from them, which helps, but it’s still too much traffic for my liking. Obviously I wouldn’t delete either them, but I may try weening myself off of both and seeing how life is without either of them again.

But that said, I’m in good spirits and looking forward to the summer and for the release of WPtouch. BraveNewCode’s second year-end is actually coming to a close, which seems strange considering it doesn’t seem that long ago we started it up.

For those of you going to WordCamp Vancouver, see you in a few days.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The BP Oil Spill

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Duane Storey

As we all know, oil has been gushing out into the Gulf of Mexico now since April 20th, nearly six weeks now. It’s an unprecedented environmental disaster that will damage the economies of many of the communities along the affected shorelines, and also impact the wildlife in those areas. 11 people lost their lives in the original explosion, and I can’t even fathom how many birds and fish have probably died as well.

This is an accident that many people believe should not have happened. In an ideal world, there would have been multiple blowout preventers and a chain of quick-to-implement disaster recovery schemes that could have patched the well up in short order. Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world, as evidenced by the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, the self destruction of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the collapse of the World Trade Centre buildings, despite the latter being built to withstand airplane impacts.

I’m not saying that BP shouldn’t have done more to prevent this from occurring, but there seems to be the expectation that accidents like this should never occur. The only way to prevent this type of accident from happening is not to drill. If you do drill, then this is an outcome that can happen. And we do drill, because we all want cheaper gas and to pay less for our heating costs.

Unfortunately, engineering isn’t about certainties, it’s about probabilities. Ever flown in a plane before? Next time you do, look out the window. See those wings? They are full of cracks, cracks which are propagating each and every flight. Ever been on a bridge? It’s cracked too. Both of them are made up with components that could fail at any moment, they are just designed such that the probability of occurrence is low enough so as to be determined “safe”, which is a completely relative term.

When you know a component has a probable failure mode, as an engineer you often add a backup (if finances allow), hoping that the destruction of both components will be independent events and that the failsafe will work. Often that’s not the case, and all backup systems fail simultaneously due to an unforeseen event. Despite having triple redundancy, many airplanes have crashed due to lack of hydraulics as a result of an event (such as an airplane engine exploding) that damages all failsafe components simultaneously. These are scenarios that are often impossible to determine in a laboratory or during the design phase.

If finances don’t allow a backup, then it’s an engineer’s responsibility to point out the probable failure modes and the likeliness of each happening. When I was a manufacturing engineer (briefly in Ottawa between 2000 and 2002), I would have to give a FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis) presentation before building any new product. It was a matrix that basically ranked both the probability of a failure occurring and also the severity of a failure occurring. If a product scored high on both of those simultaneously, it probably would have been sent back to the drawing board. That said, at that point it’s a management decision. The failure of a blowout preventer is probably a very unlikely event, but as everyone now knows, it’s a very severe event. In the world of FMEA reports, it probably would have scored in about the middle due to its low probability of occurrence.

There are also components in the engineering world that simply don’t have any backups. In NASA speak, these are called Criticality 1 components. The heat shield is an example of a Criticality 1 component, a lesson the world learned the hard way as the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over the United States in February of 2003.

As far as I’m concerned, I think BP is doing everything in their power to stop this leak. While I have no proof, there’s no doubt in my mind that if you looked closely at pretty much every other major oil operation, you would seem the same type of safety precautions (or lack of precautions) as shown by BP for this spill. Does the oil industry require oversight? Maybe. Should engineers go back to the drawing board and come up with additional failsafes in the case of an uncontrolled leak? Absolutely. But now is not the time for finger pointing, it’s the time to pool resources and fix the hole at the bottom of the ocean. I don’t really understand why it’s become so political at this point — there will be plenty of time to place the blame after the hole is sealed, and more than enough blame to go around. No point doing it now though and wasting time and resources that could be better spent fixing the spill.

Posted in Technology | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Lost: Season Finale

Posted on May 23, 2010 by Duane Storey

If you haven’t seen the finale, then don’t read this. Obviously there are a lot of spoilers below.

I gotta say, I really liked the finale. I wasn’t a fan of this entire season, but the finale sort of made the journey worthwhile. First, I’m glad a few of my predictions came true, namely with regards to Desmond being involved in helping save the island, the redemption of Ben Linus to some extent, the duality of Locke dying in the island timeline and Locke’s legs being fixed in the sideways timeline.

A few people seem disappointed with the ending. I for one loved the focus on each of the characters during the finale, starting with the flashes between the two timelines at the beginning, and ending with everyone together. A lot of people seem confused with the final ending. I think that’s the point in some ways. Is it heaven? Maybe. Is everyone there dead? Maybe. I think Christian summed it up quite nicely — you are all here because you all meant something to each other, and found a way to basically all be together again.

I love the shot of Jack at the end, lying between the bamboo, waiting for the last little bit of life to seep out of him, and looking up, seeing the plane taking everyone off the island. Jack saved everyone again.

The whole point of the series was that all the characters were lost to some extend. Some, like Ben and Jack, found some redemption at the end. But ultimately, they all ended up together, in whatever place that was, and were, for a few brief moments, all happy.

If you’ve seen it, drop a comment while it’s fresh.

Posted in Bits and Bites | Tagged , | 15 Comments

Lost: Final Predictions

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Duane Storey

Well, this is it. We’re down to only one episode left. If you haven’t seen tonight’s episode, then don’t read any further.

First, I’ll honestly say that this season has been a pretty big letdown. I mean, we spent five seasons getting to know these characters, learning about the Dharma Initiative, and also the others. Pretty much all of that has been irrelevant in the context of season 6.

I’ve been trying to figure out what I think will happen in the final episode. The key to the whole mexican standoff that’s undoubtedly going to occur in the season finale will be Desmond I’m pretty sure. Given how he’s somehow outside of the rules, I’m going to speculate that he’s the only person who can somehow kill the smoke monster.

I’m going out on a limb here to say that I think pretty much everyone else on the Island is going to die. It’s next to impossible to wrap up Kate and James and Hurley unless they all get killed off in some final battle. In the end, I suspect Jack will be left all alone to guard the Island himself, much the same way Jacob and the smoke monster were marooned there. Maybe you’ll see a closing shot of Jack bringing some other people to the Island sometime in the future at the end. It could be that the smoke monster will live and we’ll see one of the closing shots of Jack and Locke playing the game on the beach.

A lot of people seem to think they are going to collapse the two timelines. I don’t think they will. I think it’s more likely they are going to contrast what happens in the current timeline with everyone being together and relatively happy in the other timeline at Jack’s son’s performance.

I also think we’re going to see the redemption of Benjamin Linus in the finale. He’ll be called upon to kill people, but in the end he’ll sacrifice himself for the Island or to save some of the Losties. I could be wrong, but I think it would be fitting to redeem Ben.

Anyways, those are my thoughts. What do you think?

Posted in Movies and Television | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

New Heart Disease Story in the BBC

Posted on May 16, 2010 by Duane Storey

I was in bed, reading the BBC’s website on my iPad using their ultra cool application, when I came across an article showing new research linking blood fats with heart disease. The link to that article is here.

First, I should point out that there’s never really been a definitive link between high fat diets and heart disease. That comes as a surprise to a lot of people, mainly because it’s recited over and over so often as to be the conventional dogma. But research has never really backed that up in any capacity.

There is a mild link between cholesterol and heart disease, but it’s often misconstrued in the press based on a lack of understanding about how cholesterol works. There are many people with high cholesterol that don’t have any heart disease, and many people with low cholesterol that have advanced heart disease. While research is obviously still ongoing, it looks more and more likely that it’s the nature of the cholesterol, and not the amount, that matters.

With regards to the article, there are a few things I want to clarify for the lay reader.

Cambridge University researchers looked at the role of triglycerides, which is produced in the liver and derived from foods such as meat and dairy products.

As usual, the author purposefully implicates the two food groups above (meat and dairy products) that lead the reader to conclude that it’s probably fat which is the cause. Which is actually ironic given that the main source of triglycerides in the body are from dietary carbohydrates.

This is pretty old news to me, given how much I read in the area. One of the most important (and useful) metrics for predicting heart disease is the ratio between triglycerides and high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. The lower the number, the less of a chance there is for someone having or developing heart disease. That ratio can also be used as an indirect measure of the type of VLDL cholesterol (one that’s often not mentioned or ever screened for), which is the type that’s ultimately implicated in causing heart disease. As the TRIG:HDL ratio goes up, more and more of the VLDL cholesterol is small and dense, which can cause it to plug up arteries and form arterial plagues. As the ratio goes down, more and more of the VLDL cholesterol becomes large and fluffy, easily scavenged from the blood before causing a lot of harm.

That ratio can be improved by two things: lowering triglycerides or raising HDL cholesterol. Lowering triglycerides can be accomplished by reducing dietary carbohydrates or by eating carbohydrates with a lower glycemic index. HDL cholesterol is raised by exercise, weight loss, and strangely enough, by eating most types of fats.

Posted in Food | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Predicting The Weather

Posted on May 12, 2010 by Duane Storey

Most people probably don’t know it about me, but I used to be involved in weather forecasting a long time ago. My first exposure to it was a co-op job I had in the summer of 1997 up in Whitehorse, YT. I was working for Environment Canada’s weather centre, helping to develop JAVA programs for visualizing some of their data. JAVA was a new technology at the time, so it was essentially one big prototype. It worked decently enough, but I doubt it survived much past the end of my co-op term.

Years later I would be employed by the Department of Ocean Sciences at UBC as a part time software developer. I’m not entirely sure how I got the job to be honest, since I wasn’t a computer science student. I guess they liked me during the interview process and had enough confidence that I wouldn’t be a complete screw up. That job was my first exposure to developing software on a Linux platform, and I learned a lot of great skills there.

A lot of the code I wrote during that time is buried in the UBC Weather Forecasting pages. I actually got to write code that ran on a 256 node super computer, which was kind of cool. The majority of the images and movies on that page were (and judging by the looks, still are) generating using code I wrote. The actual output from the weather models are 5-dimensional data, which is a challenge to work with and to visualize. Since we only work in 3 dimensional data, most of the code I wrote attempts to slice the data in various dimensions and produce useful output.

At the heart of all weather models are a series of differential equations, mostly having to do with conservation of energy and momentum. For example, if you divide up Canada into a grid with a spacing of 10km, then the wind and solar energy going into each grid section has to equal the wind and solar energy going out of each section (obviously it’s a lot more complicated than that). As such, the accuracy of weather models starts to increase as you include reflectivity of the ground, absorption of solar energy due to vegetation, topography effects etc (some of the work I did was updating all the topography data for some of the weather models).

Every night, weather stations around Canada and the US report their data to central repositories. Using that data, a particular weather model will be primed with the initial conditions of all those weather stations, and start working on solving all those differential equations. Back when I used to work there, it used to take anywhere between 30 minutes and 6 hours to finish (depending on the grid spacing). The end result was a forecast that predicted the weather conditions in North America for the next 5 days or so.

Unfortunately British Columbia is one of the hardest areas to predict the weather for due to its complex topography (which essentially leads to various microclimates around the province) and also what is known as the Pacific Data Void (since there are few active weather stations in the Pacific Ocean, there are essentially no data to prime the weather models over the ocean). To help improve the accuracy, the research team I was with implemented what they called ensemble weather forecasting. Basically you perturb all of the initial conditions slightly, and run various iterations of the model. What you end up with are multiple weather forecasts for the same period of time that all differ slightly. By combining all the data together in a probabilistic way, you get a more accurate prediction of what the weather will ultimately be. The work I did with that group actually got me a mention in my first research paper, although truthfully I didn’t contribute much to any of the concepts in the paper other than implementing a pile of the code.

So next time you look at the weather forecast and wonder why it’s off, now you know some of the reasons. And knowing is half the battle.

Posted in Research | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

iPad Data Rates In Canada

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Duane Storey

As many people know, Rogers announced the 3G data pricing for the iPad in Canada. As expected, many people are upset about it, partially due to the lack of bandwidth, and partially due to the lack of an option to couple it with the iPhone data plan.

One good aspect of the announcement is the lack of a contract required for the data portion for the iPad. I for one am sick of locking myself into multiyear contracts, and think it’s a step in the right direction. That said, I am currently paying $30/month for the 6G/mo data plan for Rogers, so it seems silly that I can’t use some of that bandwidth for my iPad.

Truthfully, I don’t imagine many people will suck lots of bandwidth on their iPhones. Granted, it’s a new device and some bandwidth intensive applications may come out. But despite having 6G/mo on my iPhone, I don’t think I’ve ever broken through the 1GB/mo barrier yet, even with some of the tethering I’ve done. If I had a iPad 3G and a data plan, I would mostly be using the 3G data plan for purchasing books and the odd bit of web surfing. So at least for me, I suspect 250MB/mo would probably be enough.

But I purposefully didn’t but the 3G version, partially because I thought the 3G plans wouldn’t be that great (which seems to be the case), and partially because I don’t really expect to use the device in many locations without WiFi. I am disappointed that Rogers doesn’t have an option to share the iPhone’s data plan, which would seem like a no-brainer. How is it that I’m allowed to tether my laptop to it (which I consider a much more data hungry device), but am not given the ability to connect my iPad to it? I’d probably be willing to fork out $10/mo on a cell phone plan for a SIM that would allow my iPad to share the data package of my iPhone. But even the $20/mo plan that was pulled at the last second (or, according to Rogers, a mistake) is too high in my opinion. Should it really cost 66% of the monthly cost simply to share the already existing data plan? Rhetorical question with an answer of “no”.

Posted in Apple & All Things Mac | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Disappearing For The Weekend

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Duane Storey

A while ago I decided that I would take a little break and have a little ‘me time’. I’ve bounced around a few ideas in my head, and ultimately come up with a pretty good weekend adventure. I’ve been keeping the actual location to myself, simply because I want to just disappear for a few days, put the cell phone on vibrate, and get in a little rest and relaxation.

The last vacation I took was back at the end of last November, so it’s been nearly six months without a break. I don’t really feel like I need a week off at this point, but a nice relaxing weekend adventure complete with a few days of sleeping in is going to be pretty nice. I cashed in some points on travel VISA and purchased two nights in a one bedroom suite in a lakeside hotel. It has a full kitchen and a gas fireplace, so I’m looking forward to dabbling a bit in the kitchen with some (hopefully) local foods, and reading a few chapters on my iPad. I haven’t really taken many photos in months, so I’ll probably haul my camera along with me and do a few photowalks.

I have a few weeks off planned for the summer, one of which I’ll spend bouncing around Vancouver Island, and probably another one later in the summer where I can bounce around locally and maybe do some camping close to home. But prior to then, I have my little weekend adventure coming up. I’m actually pretty excited about it.

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

WPtouch 2.0: We Can See The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Duane Storey

We’re getting pretty close to releasing WPtouch 2.0 soon. We haven’t officially set a date, but the release will probably be counted using weeks, and can probably be counted using the fingers on one hand. We’ll hopefully firm that up next week.

Dale wrote a pretty informative post over on BraveNewCode, so check it out. In short, we’ll be releasing a very reasonably priced paid version that includes support first, then will eventually roll out another free version using the new codebase. The major addition to WPtouch 2.0 is a new theme framework for creating mobile themes. WPtouch 2.0 will also ship with more than one theme, so that should be an exciting addition for people who use WPtouch.

For more information, check out Dale’s post above, or following along at wptouch.com, or on BraveNewCode’s Twitter feed.

Posted in BraveNewCode | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment