genman’s blog

Interesting debate on bicycle lanes in Portland, actually a response to another article, which places the blame of several cyclist deaths on a combination of laws which require cyclists to unsafely position themselves at intersections.

I won't go into detail about the specific issues, some Oregon-law specific. Suffice it to say, it's often safest to ignore the law and use common sense. Don't pass vehicles on the right side, especially at intersections, is rule #1. (This is the corollary of "pretend you're invisible".)

Speaking of bicycle lanes, there's of course a number of problematic areas in Seattle where it's really not safe to use that lane, especially at intersections. One is a lane going northbound on to University Bridge where some unfortunate cyclist was plowed under by a truck turning right. (See rule #1.) Since there's two lanes of traffic going downhill, position yourself in the middle of the right lane, not bicycle lane, and so traffic turning right would have to either pass in front of you or stay behind.

Rule #2 is avoid bicycle lanes where you can get hit by a car door. Seattle has a few "door prize" lanes. Remember kids: On street parking is not only an automobile subsidy, it can kill you too.

Rule #3 is avoid bicycle lanes that continue on to nowhere. The intersection south on Greenlake Way intersecting NE 50th Street has a single bicycle lane which seemingly projects off to Kidd Valley, and through that intersection is no space for a cyclist with the adjacent traffic lane. Rather than negotiate a tricky merge, just take the second lane, which disappears in 100 feet or so and becomes a bike lane.

I had originally planned to ride with the Cascade Bike Club on Saturday, but somehow the description of their ride put me off. They were planning an 80 mile bicycle ride with no food stops and the post further explained that your bicycle should be in good condition (has had a tune-up in the past two years) etc. and the ride leader wouldn't leave the group to fix your flat. Also carry your own money and be prepared to get yourself home. And so forth.

I think it's fine you have common-sense rules, but once you start reminding people to be responsible over and over, it seems a little condescending. And it certainly is not fun to assume if something goes wrong to you or someone else, they're simply abandoned.

Seattle Bike Club's rides are less popular and so less people show up. We had about 10 riders. They say that 2-10 riders is best since: It's easier to remember people's names. Less frequency of mechanical trouble. It's easy to keep track of each other.

The ride yesterday was a 75 mile loop from Fall City to the city of Snohomish through the Snoqualmie Valley. The ride was mostly flat an on mostly low-traffic roads. I saw about 100 other bicycle riders out, mostly people on club or group rides.

I'm definitely going to be doing this ride again, hopefully with Kevin, to get his riding mileage up.

Programmers write code and code review is often required by managers to be done prior to code submission. I tend to dislike the process since there's a tendency for reviewers to place an emphasis on certain trivial problems and little attention is made to important qualities.

Here's my list of what a code reviewer should look for, from most important to least important:

1. Validation by additional or changed unit tests.
   
2. Duplication of functionality available elsewhere. Ironically, a lot of programmers like to rewrite things, even though it's obviously more work for them.
   
3. Sections of code or idioms repeated.
   
4. Clarity in what the new functionality does.
5. All code is clearly required. Programmers love to make things that "might be useful someday" and usually it's never used. In Java, I often see people implementing "equals/hashCode", serialization, etc. for classes that never use these methods.
   
6. Signs of junior programming practice: "Utility" classes, "Constant" classes, multiple layers (see 5), singletons, and other "Design Patterns Book" nonsense, etc. Note that utility classes aren't really bad per se, it's just that they are often written instead of supplying the appropriate functionality to an existing class or writing a new class.
7. Untyped or too many parameters. Often the same sequence of parameters appear in multiple places, see 3.
   
8. Premature optimization. See: 2. Actually this doesn't really matter as much, assuming this optimization is well tested.
9. Class names that repeat the current namespace. Names that are too long. See 3.

Here are things that aren't as important and almost worth ignoring:

1. Code (in)correctness. It's fairly impossible to find bugs just by reading code and unit testing is hopefully going to prove the code is correct. If you do spot some problem, mention it, I just don't see why you should try to "run" the program in your brain, that's what automated testing is for.
   
2. Missing boiler-plate information, such as legal or copyright notices. This can be corrected using a tool, if needed. We eventually stopped adding boiler-plate to code at m-Qube since our code wasn't shared.
   
3. Lack of code comments. The problem with most comments is they take up space, are often wordy, and don't explain anything new. Comments grow more and more inconsistent over time, so it's almost better to leave them out until the end of a project.
   
4. Improper formatting. Batch tools exist to fix formatting, so there's no need to address formatting concerns in the middle of a project. But since converting line endings causes trouble for code merging, if you see line endings change mention it.
5. Lack of parameter checking. It's a good idea to check parameters when constructing objects, but especially in Java it's not so important for every function.
   
6. Not following naming conventions. Some reason people I work with insist "enum' type names should end in "Type", but everything is a "Type" already so I don't see how it clarifies things. I also worked with people who wanted Java interfaces prefixed with "I", which is not done in the standard Java library. If 90% of programmers don't follow your naming strategy, then maybe it's not necessary.

I came across Bike Works! which is a non-profit helping Seattle kids earn free bicycles through bicycle repair programs (among other things). There was a link from their web site to a video that the local public broadcasting station KCTS put together describing their programs. Their link was broken and so I surfed on over to the actual KCTS web site and took a look at their streaming video selection, specifically for KCTS Connects.

For the curious, here's the video of Bike Works which I have downloaded and uploaded again. (To download I was forced to upgrade Real Player. Which even post update at version 11 is still a piece of shit: The audio often cuts out and video playback causes my screen to blank out a couple of times.)

... upload failed, all I have is a link.

Paging down through about 800+ clips to find clip 435, I noticed a familiar name in the list: John Keister. He used to host Almost Live! before it was canceled in 1999. Almost Live! was a local Seattle comedy show preceding Saturday Night Live, which I ended up watching, actually I most often taped the program, using the VCR for at my Dad's place, and watched it the following day. Anyway, John Keister's still out there on T.V., on PBS. From the numerous clips I've watched he offers personal commentary on local and national political issues in sometimes a humorous vein. And though obviously still his bald self he looks a bit pudgy and haggard; he's obviously older than last time I saw him.

In some ways I hate the way media's gone totally international. Where's the local television personalities I used to see? I'm to blame, watching more anime, movies, and even YouTube than network television.

I came across a web page for Bike Works!, a non-profit helping Seattle kids earn free bicycles through bicycle repair programs (among other things). There was a link from their web site to a video that the local public broadcasting station KCTS put together describing their programs. Their link was broken and so I surfed on over to the actual KCTS web site and took a look at their streaming video selection, specifically for KCTS Connects.

For the curious, here's the video of Bike Works which I have downloaded and uploaded again. (To download I was forced to upgrade Real Player. Which even post update at version 11 is still a piece of shit: The audio often cuts out and video playback causes my screen to blank out a couple of times.)

... upload failed, all I have is a link.

Paging down through about 800+ clips to find clip 435, I noticed a familiar name in the list: John Keister. He used to host Almost Live! before it was canceled in 1999. Almost Live! was a local Seattle comedy show preceding Saturday Night Live, which I ended up watching, actually I most often taped the program, using the VCR for at my Dad's place, and watched it the following day. Anyway, John Keister's still out there on T.V., on PBS. From the numerous clips I've watched he offers personal commentary on local and national political issues in sometimes a humorous vein. And though obviously still his bald self he looks a bit pudgy and haggard; he's obviously older than last time I saw him.

In some ways I hate the way media's gone totally international. Where's the local television personalities I used to see? I'm to blame, watching more anime, movies, and even YouTube than network television.

Last weekend I was out walking in 75 degree weather in t-shirt and shorts, in a location 2 hours drive from Seattle.

Today there's a light dusting of wet snow everywhere.

I'd love to go bicycling this weekend but this is ridiculous.

I've had a busy week.

Wednesday I went to see The Pillows, a Japanese rock band best known internationally for their music in a 1999 anime FLCL. The concert took place in basically a SODO warehouse undergoing remodel to become a club. A lot of Sakura-con staff and attendees were there. They were led by The Noodles and a local band, Radio Future.

Thursday was "Japan Night" (formally "Japan Girls Night") which I first attended back in Boston when I was living there with Hitomi. Mostly there were hard rock or punk bands. There were about 4-5 bands playing that night (about 1 hour each set) and we got a little tired and left early. It's hard to listen to that many bands for that long. The opening band consisted of Japanese high school girls (17 years old) singing your basic idol songs. They'll be attending Sakura-con next week and Hitomi will probably be chaperoning them.

Saturday I went out on a group ride from Bremerton with Gary Strauss. About 80 miles and 5,000 feet of climbing. Ride pictures. Afterwards, I took a shower and Hitomi and I went to a traditional Japanese music concert at Town Hall Seattle. Actually, I wouldn't necessarily say it was traditional; though they used traditional instruments a lot of the music seemed contemporary. They had a Tsugaru Shamisen master from Aomori, Hitomi's home prefecture. Tsugaru Shamisen music is more about the texture and shape of the notes than creating melody, so it's a little hard on Western ears I think. Nevertheless, the audience was obviously excited by it all.

A couple side notes from the week: I saw Barack Obama (on Youtube, natch) give a speech on race and race relations in the U.S. I was impressed. I'm not sure he'd make an effective president but he'd be one of our most intelligent sounding.

I took this route back in March 12th, 2007. I was visiting California on business and had some time on Sunday for a ride around Cupertino.

March 9th, 2008, two cyclists were killed on a similar route. An officer coming from the opposite direction, asleep at the wheel apparently, crossed a double yellow line and struck cyclists riding in the shoulder. In a car, your chances of surviving such an accident are much greater...

Given the amount of miles I cycle, what are my odds of getting killed on the road cycling? And should I "give up" and switch back to kayaking, hiking, running or something else potentially safer? The worst thing that could happen to me kayaking on Greenlake is likely hypothermia. Hiking is obviously risky as well: falling, getting lost, getting in an accident to the trail head. Runners get hit all the time.

As told to me by a Tanita scale at Bike Expo:

• Weight: 162.8 pounds
  
• % Body Fat: 5.1 (a bit "Underfat")
  
• % Total Body Water: 63.3% (Male: 50-65%)
• Muscle Mass: 146.8 pounds
• Physique Rating: 8 (out of 9, "Thin and Muscular Athlete")
• Basal Metabolic Rate, number of calories the user's body needs at rest: 2012 cal
  
• Metabolic Age: 12
• Bone Mass: 7.6lb (average)
  
• Visceral Fat Rating: 1 (from 1-59) ("healthy level")
  

So by weight, I'm 90% muscle, 5.1% fat, 4.7% bone, and .2% miscellaneous.

I'm not sure how accurate these figures are. I didn't think I was that athletic.

The scales are about $200 or so I hear, so maybe I should get one? Hitomi seems to hate that I burn so many calories just sitting around.

Valentine's Day

2008 has been going pretty well for Hitomi and I. I'm not sure if it's because I've turned into a nice(r), more thoughtful guy or Hitomi's happy, or getting old or tired of each other smooths out relationships. In any case, it's been good so far. One theory I have is I've been off enjoying my own hobbies and I've been busy with work. Or she's been grateful I've done translation work for her idol, Momoi Halko.

Valentine's Day I had considered weeks in advance. Gifts and deed ideas ranged from baking a cake to sending flowers to her work. Hitomi's not too into jewelry or flowers, which saves money. I've done cake baking before. But what has been successful before, on a number of levels, has been buying clothing, or underwear aka lingerie. She still wears Birkenstock sandals bought by her very ex-boyfriend and a watch or two. And she's kept around the few clothes I've bought her over the years and it's always a treat to see that.

Given my schedule, shopping waited until the day of. I went out cycling to a few stores in search from some undies. It was a beautiful day and I had time in the morning to shop. I was dressed like your typical bicyclist, and though I stick out like a flashing LED in a lingerie store, somehow that makes me feel more comfortable.

Construction-wise, there's a lot of variation of underwear. But the general rule seems to be, the less material the more expensive. But I try to be mindful of comfort. You hope they're worn at least a few times.

I also picked up some chocolate at Fran's which was quite busy even in the middle of the morning, full of men deciding how big of a box is reasonable. I actually haven't heard Hitomi complain her chocolate box wasn't big enough, and actually in the mind of Hitomi an enormous box would be neither cute nor conducive to maintain body weight. Selection was easy and the line moved relatively rapidly until a man who wanted to put together a customized box for his honey stalled the process. Yes, you can hand-pick 20 different chocolates and caramels but if you don't have any idea about anything, why not buy the already assembled "assortment" box?

I made it back in time for some meeting. I was going to meet Hitomi downtown and she was late and I was too. Hitomi decided on Japanese crepes for dinner. The place was closed though, it being one of those "occasional" days they close early. Still, there's nothing wrong with the alternative restaurants nearby. Then, I bring out the with gifts and find out Hitomi wasn't expecting anything, since I was busy. And thus, I got nothing in return.

The behavior/result flowchart is as follows:

Wife-logic

You may notice from the diagram that there are only two final states, neither of which result in a strong positive for me. Of course, Hitomi would cite several supporting arguments for why I should be reasonably scared of her.

.83 Ride to Bellingham