Waldo Nell's Voice

So I got a mac. Nothing new...

Just.....

this time....

it is a little monster.

What would you do with an

8 Core 2.8GHz Xeon CPU with 1.6GHz 64-bit dual independent FSB

8GiB RAM

3.75TB Redundant Storage (RAID1 + RAID5)

NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of GDDR3

30" 2560 x 1600 Cinema LCD

I knew about MathML for some time now, but I never thought it was this bad. See, MathML is an XML based markup language used to describe in a standards compliant manner mathematical notations. In principle this is a cool thing, until I saw a real world example from Wolfram Research:

<math xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML' mathematica:form='TraditionalForm' xmlns:mathematica='http://www.wolfram.com/XML/'> <semantics> <mrow> <mrow> <msqrt> <mi> z </mi> </msqrt> <mo> &#10869; </mo> <mrow> <munderover> <mo> &#8721; </mo> <mrow> <mi> k </mi> <mo> = </mo> <mn> 0 </mn> </mrow> <mi> &#8734; </mi> </munderover> <mrow> <semantics> <msub> <mrow> <mo> ( </mo> <mrow> <mo> - </mo> <mfrac> <mn> 1 </mn> <mn> 2 </mn> </mfrac> </mrow> <mo> ) </mo> </mrow> <mi> k </mi> </msub> <annotation encoding='Mathematica'> TagBox[SubscriptBox[RowBox[List[&quot;(&quot;, RowBox[List[&quot;-&quot;, FractionBox[&quot;1&quot;, &quot;2&quot;]]], &quot;)&quot;]], &quot;k&quot;], Pochhammer] </annotation> </semantics> <mo> &#8290; </mo> <mfrac> <msup> <mrow> <mo> ( </mo> <mrow> <mn> 1 </mn> <mo> - </mo> <mi> z </mi> </mrow> <mo> ) </mo> </mrow> <mi> k </mi> </msup> <mrow> <mi> k </mi> <mo> ! </mo> </mrow> </mfrac> </mrow> </mrow> </mrow> <mo> /; </mo> <mrow> <mrow> <semantics> <mo> &#10072; </mo> <annotation encoding='Mathematica'> &quot;\[LeftBracketingBar]&quot; </annotation> </semantics> <mrow> <mi> z </mi> <mo> - </mo> <mn> 1 </mn> </mrow> <semantics> <mo> &#10072; </mo> <annotation encoding='Mathematica'> &quot;\[RightBracketingBar]&quot; </annotation> </semantics> </mrow> <mo> &lt; </mo> <mn> 1 </mn> </mrow> </mrow> <annotation-xml encoding='MathML-Content'> <apply> <ci> Condition </ci> <apply> <eq /> <apply> <power /> <ci> z </ci> <cn type='rational'> 1 <sep /> 2 </cn> </apply> <apply> <sum /> <bvar> <ci> k </ci> </bvar> <lowlimit> <cn type='integer'> 0 </cn> </lowlimit> <uplimit> <infinity /> </uplimit> <apply> <times /> <apply> <ci> Pochhammer </ci> <apply> <times /> <cn type='integer'> -1 </cn> <cn type='rational'> 1 <sep /> 2 </cn> </apply> <ci> k </ci> </apply> <apply> <times /> <apply> <power /> <apply> <plus /> <cn type='integer'> 1 </cn> <apply> <times /> <cn type='integer'> -1 </cn> <ci> z </ci> </apply> </apply> <ci> k </ci> </apply> <apply> <power /> <apply> <factorial /> <ci> k </ci> </apply> <cn type='integer'> -1 </cn> </apply> </apply> </apply> </apply> </apply> <apply> <lt /> <apply> <abs /> <apply> <plus /> <ci> z </ci> <cn type='integer'> -1 </cn> </apply> </apply> <cn type='integer'> 1 </cn> </apply> </apply> </annotation-xml> </semantics> </math>

It is awfully complex and verbose! This just reiterates what I held to be true for a long time now - XML is being abused. It is great for moving hierarchical data between disparate systems - even non-hierarchical data if you focus on the interoperability and compatibility it facilitates, however using it as RDBMS storage solutions or this kind of hyper verbose markup is down right a waste of space and time. When will people learn that efficiency is important?

Look at this well known equation (all from the Wikipedia entry):

In LaTeX it looks like this:

x = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a}

Terse, huh?

Look at MathML:

<math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML">
 <mi>x</mi>
 <mo>=</mo>
 <mfrac>
  <mrow>
   <mrow>
    <mo>-</mo>
    <mi>b</mi>
   </mrow>
   <mo>&PlusMinus;</mo>
   <msqrt>
    <msup>
     <mi>b</mi>
     <mn>2</mn>
    </msup>
    <mo>-</mo>
    <mrow>
     <mn>4</mn>
     <mo>&InvisibleTimes;</mo>
     <mi>a</mi>
     <mo>&InvisibleTimes;</mo>
     <mi>c</mi>
    </mrow>
   </msqrt>
  </mrow>
  <mrow>
   <mn>2</mn>
   <mo>&InvisibleTimes;</mo>
   <mi>a</mi>
  </mrow>
 </mfrac>
</math>

It is disgusting...

Here and another one. First blogged here.

So you do some DBA work and one day realised that the worst has come true - the replication is just so broken you have to start all over. Usually there is always some kind of ground level when working with computers. If a program is badly broken try reinstalling it. If that does not work try reinstalling the OS maybe. If that does not work buy a new computer etc.

I had this situation on a system I am playing DBA on. Slony-I was badly broken so I had to restart from scratch. My ground zero was to drop the database and start over... But... what if you can't???

This is happening even today, but still so true...

-2000 Lines Of Code

If you look to the top right of this page, you will see a new section titled Links. In there I will regularly place new links of various content. Feel free to explore the content.

I do not have words to describe my amazement at the image quality my new Canon 1Ds Mark III camera produces. I just printed picture 10 of my new quick gallery on Epson's Archival Matte Super A3 paper. The sharpness is just breathtaking. I can place a grass blade on top of the one in the photo, and you will not be able to decide which one is sharper or more real.

Enjoy the quick gallery - I spent the afternoon taking some macro shots of things in my garden, and the results speak for themselves. Enjoy!

I recently installed Resharper 3.0.2 for VS2008. I found that many of my OnClick etc. handlers were marked as errors as the symbols could supposedly not be found. The project compiles fine though. IntelliSense also stopped working properly on many symbols.

After lots of searching I found the cause of the problem - since this issue remained even when I reverted back to VS2005.

http://intellij.net/forums/message.jspa?messageID=5202694#5202694

The essence of the problem is that VS2008 sometimes adds this to your web.config file:

<controls>
..
<add tagPrefix="asp" namespace="System.Web.UI.WebControls" assembly="System.Web.Extensions, Version=3.5.0.0., Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />

..
</controls>


To solve the problem change the tag prefix asp to something else like aspajax.

A couple of pics I took the other day in my garden...

:(