Many thanks to the Great White Snark, for finally presenting the differences between Nerd, Dork, and Geek explained by a Venn diagram.

This is pure gold, baby.

I try to stay a little more geek than nerd, but we all have our moments.

My life extends in interesting ways beyond software and technology. Honestly! One of those ways is playing mandolin. Mostly I’ve jammed with friends every now and then. And then last summer I went to River of the West Mandolin Camp out in the Columbia River Gorge, a stone’s throw east of Portland. It was a transformative experience that changed my playing and how I think about learning and playing.

Brian Oberlin, the guy who puts it all together, just announced the second annual River of the West Mandolin Camp, June 10-13, 2010. Instructors include Brian Oberlin (he’s really good), Don Steirnberg (used to play in Jethro Burns’s band and he taught at the camp last year), and Radim Zenkl (one of the hottest mandolin players in the world). I am really excited!

Watch the promo video and visit the website for more information.

Holy cow, I won the Windows Server 2008 R2 Haiku contest! See my earlier post for details about my haiku and the contest. A huge thank you to all my friends who voted, you made it happen! Woohoo!

The prize is a sweet home entertainment system, and, yes, we’re going to have to plan several movie nights to invite you all over. Stay tuned. But first we’ve got to figure out where we’re going to put it. This is going to take some major rearranging! Nice problem to have to deal with!

(Note to self: winning a contest is not necessarily conducive to meeting today’s deadline. Sending out for extra midnight oil to burn later tonight.)

I entered a contest for haiku about the release of Window Server 2008 R2 in November. Today I was informed that I am one of nine finalists. I have passed the judges’ round. Now it is time for the voting Internet public to select the winner. With your vote, I could be that winner! Needless to say, that would be awesome!

If you are reading this, you are a denizen of the Internet, and that more than qualifies you to vote me the winner. It’s easy, just go to https://www.r2haiku.com/Haikus/Finalists and click the Vote button on the haiku by poet “vstuart”.

When you vote, you’ll need to provide your identity (so they know you aren’t voting twice) using a Twitter account or Live ID account.

Check this out. If you use your Twitter account, your browser is redirected to Twitter (you can verify that by the URL in the address bar) which asks if you want to allow or deny Twitter to vouch for your identity. This is federated security: you are not creating a new identity for the contest site, and you are not providing your Twitter credentials to any site other than Twitter. More of the online world needs to use federated security.

The contest prize is a really nice home entertainment center. If I win, you’re all invited over for movie night at my house. Seriously. I am taking nominations of what movies we should watch.

How about the haiku? Here’s my entry.

Managed code on Core
My web server takes a step
A small footprint remains

Some of my not-so-technical friends have asked for an explanation. Windows Server 2008 comes in multiple editions, each one suitable for specific uses. Windows Server Core is an edition that has the absolute bare bones of a server operating system: no bells and whistles. In the original release of Windows Server 2008, the Core edition did not have the ability to run software built on the .NET Framework: .NET-based software is also known as managed code. The second release of Windows Server 2008, called R2, extends the Core edition so that it can run managed code. That means that Windows Server 2008 R2 Core is an excellent choice for hosting software such as web applications built on ASP.NET or Silverlight. Over the first release of Windows Server Core, that is a real step forward. The amount of memory and other resources used by an application or a machine are referred to as it’s footprint. Being able to host web applications with a no-frills Core operating system means that the web servers used for these kinds of application are much smaller, easier to maintain, and have a smaller “attack surface”. That, in turn, means that if the web server is a virtual machine, you can get more virtual web servers on a single physical server, resulting in more users getting served on the same physical hardware. That saves time and money.

A few words on haiku are also in order. My dad loved Japanese culture, including the poetry forms of haiku and renga. In high school and college I took up an interest in Japanese poetry as well. I still have my father’s copy of Buson’s poems on my shelf. Haiku is a considerably more than the 17 syllable format, and originally they were written by two poets working together. As I was writing my haiku, I wanted to have that element of surprise created by a turn of a phrase, revealing something which was previously understood as one thing to become something else. And so taking a step forward with web server technology becomes a reflection looking backwards at the footprint – both literal and metaphysical – that is left behind.

There are more aspects of traditional haiku, such as references to nature, which are missing in my modest effort. I don’t pretend to creating art, but I do admit to having fun going through the exercise of paring my thoughts down to the correct structure while leaving something for the reader to appreciate and reflect upon. This is a familiar path with modern subjects: consider this anonymous twentieth century haiku that I learned as a child.

Schizophrenia.
I thought I was really sick!
I’m beside myself.

My distant recollection of a traditional Japanese poetry aside, I must acknowledge the inspiration I drew from the modern day Laughing Buddhas, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, the provocateurs of National Public Radio’s Car Talk. Some time ago they presented a series of automotive haiku on their show. This one instantly caught my imagination.

Four-wheel drive pickup
I remember his last words
”Hold my beer. Watch this.”

I hope that my humble three-line poem expressed some of the joy and playfulness found in this haiku, which turns the commonplace truck and driver into a series of moments for consideration, wonder and surprise.

Now that you understand what it means, my sources of inspiration, and all that… please vote for my haiku! Tell all of your friends to vote for me, poet vstuart, too. Voting closes Friday, January 29, 2010 at midnight Pacific time.

A number of years back, Jeffrey Palermo had an idea for people arriving early in town for a Microsoft conference to meet up in a hotel bar the evening before the conference. The idea is to have a beer, catch up with old friends, make new ones, and generally get psyched for the conference to come. From that humble origin, Party with Palermo was born.

If you’re headed to Los Angeles next week for PDC09 and you’re going to be there Monday night, November 16, then head over to http://pdc09.partywithpalermo.com/ and RSVP for this free party. The PDC09 edition will be at The Mayan, 1038 South Hill St., Los Angeles, CA 90015, from 7 to 10 PM. I will see you there!

[Disclaimer: Geek content = 0. Fun content = 100. This is a really great show that I produce once a year. -Stuart]

The Portland Juggling & Vaudeville Extravaganza is the annual show of the Portland Juggling Festival, featuring the festival’s special guests, and it is always an amazing evening of talent, laughs and entertainment. This year’s show is going to be INCREDIBLE, so please tell all your friends, family, colleagues, everyone to come to the show. We depend on your word of mouth to get the message out and people to the show, so please spread the word!

Juggling & Vaudeville Extravaganza
7:00 PM, Saturday, September 26, 2009
Benson Auditorium, 546 NE 12th Ave, Portland, OR

$16 General, $10 Student with ID, $8 Child (12 & under) and Senior

Tickets available at:
Brown Paper Tickets: 800-838-3006 or click here.
And at the door, day of the show (cash or check only)

Facebook Friends! If you are on Facebook, it is easy to tell your friends about the show. Simply follow this link to the event page, add yourself to the event, and click on “Invite People to Come” under the logo. It is quick, it is easy, and it will make a big difference to the success of our show!

Okay, what about those performers? I’m glad you asked!

This year we are extremely excited to have Sean Blue from New York City headlining the show. Sean is an artist, juggler and teacher, a creative force whom the famed Bill Irwin called a “master juggler.” Sean received the Award of Innovation from the International Jugglers’ Association in 2007. His versatile and technical juggling skills will astound you.

We are fortunate to have not one, but two of the world’s leading women unicyclists in the show. First, Kaori Matsuzawa, Japanese Women’s Unicycle Champion, returns to the Extravaganza this year. She was a huge hit at last year’s festival and show, and we just had to have her back! Last year she brilliantly transformed unicycling into modern dance on our stage, performing in a long flowing dress. Yes, you read that correctly, unicycling in a dress. Kaori has an all-new routine for us this year!

Second, Becky Banning is the reigning North American Women’s Freestyle Champion, having successfully defended her title from last year, and won 5 gold medals in artistic unicycling in the process. At 17 years old, she has competed in seven North American Championships and two International Championships, and is the leader of the Panther Pride Unicycle Team in North Bend, Washington. We are honored to have two highly talented unicyclists on the same stage, showing two wonderfully different approaches to riding on a single wheel.

We are absolutely delighted to welcome Beth Clarke to Portland. Beth is a rope walker (or funambulist if you’d like a fancy word to impress your friends) who will perform a slack rope act like none you’ve ever seen. Well, I suppose that is unless you’ve seen Beth perform as a member of the highly acclaimed Sweet Can Circus from San Francisco. She has studied and performed all over the world, and I bet the end of her performance will surprise you!

There are many more acts in the show, including Poetic Motion Machine (2009 IJA Team medalists), Stanford Juggling Research Institute (2004 IJA Team medalists), Circus Conspiracy, and local favorites including Rhys Thomas, Charlie Brown, Curt Carlyle, and more!

You can see that this is going to be one incredible evening of live entertainment without equal anywhere! It only happens once a year, so plan to join us and bring all of your friends!

I wasn't able to attend last weekend's WhereCampPDX, an unconference on all things geographical. I find the current Stuart v1.0's inability to be in two places at the same time to be overly restrictive. I'll have to work on a time-travel upgrade or cloning technology or something.

That meant that I missed real-life Pac Man on the streets of Portland. What a concept! It turns out that some grad students in NYU's Interactive Telecommunications program started the idea with Pac Manhattan, running through the streets around Washington Square Park in Manhattan. Each real-life player (Pac Man and the ghosts) is paired with a controller back in a game room, and players and controllers are in constant contact via cell phone communicating location and status.

WhereCampPDX transported the game to Portland's Park Blocks. Now you can watch the video of Jason Mauer in interview and in action as the Pac Man. Wild, man!

Our story so far... Michael Eaton started it and tagged Sarah Dutkiewicz who in turn tagged Jeff Blankenburg and he turned around and tagged Josh Holms who did the tag thing to Larry Clarkin who so totally tagged Dan Rigby who put the tag on Chad Campbell who played his tagster card on Pete Brown who taggerized Shawn Wildermuth and he tagulated Julie Lerman who tagified Camey Combs and she tagged me. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.

How old were you when you first started programming? I was 12 years old and access to computers were damn hard to come by in 1972. There was a PDP-8e in the basement of the math department building at Oregon State University where my father was earning his PhD. As children of a grad student, my brother and then I were allowed to use it. There was also a student-built 60-bit glass storage computer down there, much larger and far less useful as far as I could see.

How did you get started in programming? I played around with both of those computers for a few months, poking my way around some basic concepts of assembly language. Then I got a used copy of the textbook for Basic programming, and a small student account for the CDC-6600 in the new computer center.

What was your first language? I dinked aroudn with the PDP-8e assembly language, but didn't master it, so that doesn't count. That means good old Basic was my first language. Dad finished his PhD and we moved to Bellevue, Washington. After some searching around, my brother and I got a Xerox educational grant for a study group of junior- and senior-high school students to buy Fortran textbooks and some time on Xerox Sigma 9s to hone our skills. Hey, man, don't horde all the Hollerith constants, okay?

What was the first real program you wrote? The first program that I got paid for, if that makes it real, was in college. I wrote a pretty large simulation of the effects of Saturn's moons on its rings for a physics professor. That was in C.

What languages have you used since you started programming? Basic, Fortran, C, Pascal, C++, Forth, IA (x86) assembler, C#, Visual Basic .NET, and XSLT. I've experimented with a dozen others, stuff like Cω, Haskell, and F#.

What was your first professional programming gig? I took a year off from college in 1979 and landed a job with a small time-sharing firm, doing custom programming as well as operating a few PDP-11/70s. I remember working on several small projects, one of them was tracking oil well shareholders and productions. Another was running statistics on horse races.

If you knew then what you know now, would you have started programming? Absolutely yes. Without a moment's hesitation.

If there is one thing you learned along the way that you would tell new developers, what would it be? Cultivate a passion for learning. Everything in software development changes all the time. If you don't love learning new stuff all the time, you are in for a rough ride.

What's the most fun you've ever had... programming? Gosh, that is a tough one. Once I wrote a call-graph profiler for a language that didn't have one, and used it to analyze and boost performance about eight-fold. The combination of writing the tool and applying it was totally cool.

Who are you calling out?  Friends, please forgive me: Scott Hanselman, Sam Gentile, Adam Kinney, Jesus Rodriguez, and Pat Helland.

Whoops!  Here's a photo of the display in the elevator at my hotel at TechEd 2008. You know, the hotel across from the convention center filled with hundreds of developers and Microsoft employees. I guess it is running (or not) on Windows.

I couldn't figure out how to click the Send Error Report button. For all I know, it is still there waiting for input.

Here's a little C# quiz for your brain bones. What will happen when the following code is executed? Explain why.

Do not compile the code, just use your gray matter.

This came up during a conversation last week. I wouldn't want to bet on everyone getting the correct answer, and purely on that basis alone this should probably not be a recommended practice. It's still a gem of a thought problem.

<FunnyPages source="technorati.com">

They have created a monster!

Here's an error page from Technorati that tickled my funny bone. Looks like a server is unavailable.

And, yes, the page title really is "Technorati is borked right now!" On page refresh, they seem to have unborked the great Technorati, and all is once again well with the world.

</FunnyPages>

I grabbed a taxi in Seattle the other day, and asked my driver my customary question, "Where are you from?"

"Ah," he said, "now that is a very interesting question. Maybe you mean, 'where do I come from first?' is that it?" Well, sure, that's a good place to start. "Very well, how about if I answer your question with a question?" I didn't know there was going to be a test on this ride or I might have studied up. "What was the first country to recognize the sovereignty of the United States?" OMG, today's quiz subject is US history.

Thinking, thinking. I remembered that Benjamin Franklin was off in France somewhere around that time. Maybe he secured French recognition of the newly minted United States. "France," I confidently declared.

"Nope. I'll give you a hint. Do you want a hint from classical music or classic rock?"

Let's go for classic rock.

"Crosby, Stills and Nash sang a song called Marrakesh Express, so what country is Marrakech in?"

"Morocco." Whew! I know that by luck: there's a Moroccan restaurant in Portland named Marrakesh. "Really, Morocco?"

"Yes, in 1777!" Cool, I did not know that. I don't think that I even knew that once and then forgot it. But Morocco? Really?

Yes, Morocco really was the first country to recognize the independence of the United States of America, with references cited.

We arrived at my destination and I paid my driver and thanked him for the history lesson. And we didn't get to where else he was from.

Now I've got some reading to do.

Compensable, adjective: that which can be compensated. Yes, it really is a word. I was under the mistaken impression that I had to say compensatable, but that's not even a word. So WS-BusinessActivity describes compensable activities.

Wa— uh... —hoo. This blog started up with a Technorati rank of approximately alef-naught. Now in the world of competitive ranking, that leaves no where to go but down.

Today VisualStuart.net passed a milestone (no worries, it's less painful than passing a kidney stone) by breaking through the 1,000,000 rank barrier. Yes, VisualStuart.net is now among the 962,510 highest ranked blogs on Technorati. It boggles the mind. See the stats for yourself.

And how was this incredible feat achieved? Why, it was you, dear reader, nay, dear blogger, nay, indeed, dear linking blogger who linked to my blog from yours in the past six months, boosting my so-called authority, and thus improving my ranking. I am forever in your debt.

Okay, outta my way #962,509, I am busting through!

Microsoft Surface will be making its debut commercial appearance at AT&T stores in four trial cities starting 17 April 2008. Surface is a 30-inch table display that combines touch, gesture, and device recognition. I've seen Surface from a distance at various events — it has been impossible to get any closer than about 12 feet due to the crushing mass of geekdom it always attracts.

AT&T will conduct a trial of Surface at selected stores in New York, San Antonio, Atlanta, and San Francisco, and then evaluate deploying throughout its 2,200 US stores. The announcement was made at CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas on 1 April 2008. Keep your finger on the pulse of the Surface at their team blog.

Don Box and Charles Torre interviewed She-Who-Watches-Microsoft in All About Mary Jo on Channel 9. The informal and slightly irreverent video was filmed backstage at the Lang.NET 2008 conference.

If you're not familiar with her prodigious body of work, Mary Jo Foley has been writing All About Microsoft for ZDNet since September 2006. And prior to that gig she wrote Microsoft Watch for eWeek for eleven years.

In the interview, Don's unrelenting pursuit of the truth and subtle sleuthing uncovers that Mary Jo has written a new book, Microsoft 2.0, due out later this spring. It purports to predict what Microsoft AB (After Bill) will look like.

Note to Don about your new career interests: you really do seem better suited for the sensitive architect role than investigative journalism. I am not saying don't follow your dream, but in the meantime keep your day job.