awksedgreep

When will Ruby/JRuby Development Stabilize

2010-06-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

I appreciate that making things "cooler" and more "beautiful" is a major part of the Ruby/JRuby mindset. However, those of us who are maintaining significant code bases seem to be the ones disregarded first when a rewrite is considered.

Rails 3 is starting to get silly with the complete rewrite of an already beautiful way to integrate JavaScript into your Rails app.

I feel like being a Ruby developer is like this picture--Hitting a bullseye from a horse doing 30mph.

I really wish we could all agree that Ruby in itself is a beautiful language and that things are "good enough" as they are today. Backwards compatibility needs to be higher on the priority list now that we have many users of Ruby, JRuby, and Rails.

By the way I'm not picking on JRuby here by including them. I'm just trying to be more inclusive since it should be considered/mentioned more. The fact that this is a negative post is in no way reflective of JRuby or meant to pick on them.

Vinegar for a Longer and Happier Life

2010-06-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

This is the most comprehensive and logical explanation of why vinegar and ACV make me feel great. It eliminates fatigue, gives a major energy boost almost immediately, helps lose weight, and reduces join pain. Many people use it as a liver cleanse as well.

http://www.naturodoc.com/library/lifestyle/umeboshi_vinegar.htm

Until I read this I just knew it worked. I also knew that since I was a kid I craved all foods with vinegar and couldn't explain why. I always felt better after eating pickles and mom would give me a hard time when I'd finish off the pickle juice when the jar was empty. I always felt healthier after so I had no idea why she was concerned.

All this reading has me craving a pickle.

Why redis for time series data?

2010-06-07T09:44:00.001-07:00

I just saw a contrived benchmark from a gentleman in China about redis vs tokyo db vs mongodb for storing time series data.

http://bit.ly/9GGCLP

I would comment, but I can speak Chinese much better than I can read it and I can't seem to post.

Here's what I would say if I could:

You're completely ignoring the extra functionality you get with redis. The nature of time series is that you'll be getting results in sort order by window 100% of the time after you store it.

Redis presorts which makes this operation very fast, but costs a bit more when you store it.

Yes, it stores it slower, but it's presorted and will return in sorted order very very fast(as you have shown) when queried by window.

If this was weighted by importance, "read last 30 days ohlc by symbol" would be like 90%+ of your priority.

The only case where presort makes less sense is if you are writing so fast presort is not optimal(not likely).

I've been looking for a time series data store as good as redis for 10+ years. We telemetry geeks really like the way it works. It just makes sense.

Having said all that there is nothing wrong with the other solutions as they will likely be fast enough for what you want to do with them. NoSQL is wicked fast by nature, but redis is wicked faster and pre-optimized for 90% of your operations.

Regex from BASH

2010-06-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

Before deciding against using BASH for this CGI, I went through the paces of injection denial and found something cool.

BASH supports regex now(as of 3.0 I think).

Commands like this work great:

[mcotner@xyz:~]$ select='SELECT boogie'
[mcotner@xyz:~]$ delete='DELETE boogie'
[mcotner@xyz:~]$ if [[ $select =~ '^SELECT' || $select =~ '^SHOW' ]]; then echo 'yea'; fi
yea

Should be very handy in the future even though I'm not going to use it for this project.

NoSQL, a DBAs Perspective

2010-05-25T21:58:00.000-07:00

In order to summarize this post I'll just start with this. We will shortly have Redis deployed in our production environment. I can't really tell you how happy this makes me.

As a DBA, and more importantly an "Open Source DBA", I find many of the new NoSQL options intriguing.

MongoDB:
I've been following the MongoDB project for a while now, and while it's not my cup of tea it does seem very interesting. I've been a web developer for 12+ years and can see where some might think it's a perfect fit, but the traditional developer in me wants data structures that make more sense to programmers. Developers have been struggling with SQL for so long it seems odd and off-putting to replace it with JSON and another query language. It just doesn't seem like the way to go. ActiveRecord is very popular because it feels like regular OOP and fits the developer mindset.

Redis and Ohm:
Wow. It's almost like an epiphany. All my data structures including queues, hashes, arrays, even time series data(sorted lists) stored conveniently in a wicked fast central location. It's like the grail for programmer happiness. Developers don't have to learn anything new. Great libraries handle the interaction with the DB and make it feel as natural as possible to work with these data structures.

All I can say is watch this space. If you're reading this and haven't been following the Redis project. Go check it out. You'll be glad you did. I've been looking for an optimal mechanism for storing time series data for 10+ years now. I'm a huge telemetry geek and Redis with sorted sets is a game changer.

Hashes for storing variable length object data is sweet too. The newest Ohm libraries are using this new functionality and I'm sure the speed is amazing. Forking to save the data is a bit memory intensive for large sets, but it's a nearly optimal solution to the problem of persistence.

I could go on but I won't. You can probably tell I'm very interested in Redis and look forward to many projects using this novel new tech.

I suspect that SQL databases are here to stay, but options are always welcome. If NoSQL does end up taking over the world I'm one DBA who's happy to go back to dev and use these great new alternatives.

Slight delay

2010-05-18T04:42:00.001-07:00

Well you may have noticed that the 15th came and went. There's been a slight delay in a datamapper release I've been waiting for. The current release uses objectspace features and those of you familiar with JRuby know that it adversely affects performance if you use them. The DM folks promise that the fix has already been applied and are rolling a release in the coming week(s?).

As soon as this happens I should be ready to roll some gem releases of my own.

I've been thinking of ripping out echoe in favor of just gemcutter anyway. Maybe I'll use the extra time to do that. If nothing else it would be nice to have both projects maintained in the same way.

Gonna try this blogging thing again

2010-05-10T13:43:00.000-07:00

Now that I finally have something to offer. I'm going to try this blogging thing again.

I have two gems in the works. One is a framework called CommonThread for message oriented middleware in JRuby. The other is a JRuby wrapper for SNMP4J called SNMP4JR.

I just opened fresh new Lighthouse accounts for both and am ready to start working on public releases. I'm shooting for May 15, 2010 for a public gemcutter release of both.

For those of you who have tried/use phpMyTop or MyTop.rb I have updates coming for you all as well. I'll probably be moving them from sourceforge to github however. I see no reason to split my projects up. I'll shoot for June 1 for these. The fresh new versions are actively in use here at Manheim, but need some love for public consumption again.

The big development push is something I've been working on for years now. CommonThread is going on 6 years old now and has been significantly reworked this year for JRuby. Ruby never had good enough threading support to warrant a public release and JRuby wasn't mature enough(IMO) until recently. We now have a thread safe ORM in Ruby/JRuby called DataMapper. I've stripped out ActiveRecord in favor of it, however you can use any thread safe ORM you like. I tried Ohm with it for a bit, but had some threading issues with redis(that have been fixed now). If you need extra performance I strongly suggest it. I'll be adding queue support for Redis in the near future as well as JMS once I complete my JRuby conversion of the framework.

The goal is to use CommonThread and SNMP4JR . . as well as Jmx4r to build a fantastic database management/monitoring tool that surpasses MyTop.rb. My goal is a public release by the end of the year. So I'll be using the gems I'm releasing for a substantial project, much like the folks at 37Signals.

I'm going to blog along the way so watch this space.

Greenspan says China won’t sell U.S. bonds … because no one would buy!

2007-06-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit blog happy today. Just couldn't resist this one. :) Granted, they'd never pull out wholesale, but there's a concerted effort to diversify.

By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
Reuters
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN1228045520070613

NEW YORK — There is little reason to fear a wholesale pullout by China out of U.S. government bonds, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Tuesday.

While expressing concerns about China’s runaway growth rate and what he described as overvalued stocks, Greenspan played down the prospect that Chinese authorities would sell Treasuries in earnest, forcing a sharp spike in U.S. interest rates.

Asked at a commercial real estate conference if investors should be worried about this oft-cited concern, Greenspan said: “I wouldn’t be — no.”

Still, Greenspan said the reason such a withdrawal was unlikely was that China would not have anyone to sell the securities to, hardly the sort of comfort jittery bond investors were seeking.

U.S. government debt has been under severe pressure over the past week, with yields rising sharply on anxiety over the likelihood that global credit conditions would tighten as the year progresses. Bond prices move inversely to yields.

Greenspan reinforced the nervousness, saying that a global liquidity boom which he traced back to the end of the Cold War would not go on forever.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” he told the audience.

Now a private-sector consultant following more than 18 years at the U.S. central bank, Greenspan reiterated his prediction that China’s latest growth spurt had come too far, too fast.

“We cannot continue this rate of growth in China and the Third World. This cannot continue indefinitely,” Greenspan said in a speech. “Some of these price/earnings ratios are discounting nirvana.”

Chinese bank would expand into U.S. and Russia

2007-06-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here's a nice follow-up to my earlier post.

By Jamil Anderlini
Financial Times, London
Tuesday, June 12, 2007

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3b314b7a-1913-11dc-a961-000b5df10621.html

HONG KONG — Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country’s largest lender, has applied for banking licences in the US and Russia as it seeks to expand outside its home market, the bank’s chairman said on Tuesday.

“We have applied to regulatory authorities in the US, Russia, and other places to set up operations,” Jiang Jianqing, ICBC’s chairman, said after the bank’s annual general meeting. “Global investors are all looking at the BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India, and China — and we are very interested in increasing our operations in these markets too.”

The bank’s global ambitions represent a sea-change from just four years ago, when the country’s state-owned lenders were struggling with mountains of bad loans and poor management.

“Many of the country’s banks were insolvent just a few years ago and it is only very recently that they have begun to clean up their act,” said Charlene Chu, banking analyst at Fitch Ratings.

In recent years Beijing has bailed out the country’s largest lenders to the tune of $430 billion (£218.4 billion) through direct equity injections and carving out bad loans.

The banks have also sold a further $70 billion worth of shares to foreign strategic investors and the public through initial public offerings in Shanghai and Hong Kong, and insist they have improved vastly their non-performing loan ratios, corporate governance, and risk management systems.

“We expect ICBC will be looking to do a lot more acquisitions because they have a lot of money and they definitely want to go global,” said May Yan, China banking analyst at Moody’s rating agency.

But the bank faces opposition to its plan to expand in the US because of concerns it does not meet American regulatory standards. The issue has been raised in the bilateral Strategic Economic Dialogue, with the US agreeing last month to consider Chinese bank applications to open US branches under “the principle of national treatment.”

While foreign banks have been making significant inroads into China in recent years and are pushing hard for greater access, Chinese banks are largely excluded from foreign markets because of a history of poor risk management and corporate governance.

Bank of China, which has the largest overseas operations of any Chinese bank, agreed to pay a fine of $20 million to US and Chinese authorities in 2002 for alleged misconduct at one of its New York branches, which included charges of fraud and preferential treatment for customers with personal relationships with bank officials.

ICBC does not have plans to expand in the UK but has seen “very positive developments” in its London operations, Mr Jiang said.

Caught you!

2007-06-13T12:58:00.000-07:00

By REUTERS
Published: June 13, 2007
Morgan Stanley will pay $4.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit with brokerage clients who bought precious metals and paid storage fees, according to a court filing.

The proposed settlement, which is subject to approval by the Federal District Court in Manhattan, includes $1.5 million in cash and other benefits valued at about $2.9 million, according to a court filing on Monday.

The suit, filed in August 2005, asserted that Morgan Stanley told clients it was selling them precious metals that they would own in full and that the company would store.

But Morgan Stanley either made no investment specifically on behalf of those clients, or made entirely different investments of lesser value and security, according to the complaint.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/business/13morgan.html?_r=1&dlbk&oref=slogin

Thank you GATA!

US Dollar Purchased by China and Japan

2007-06-13T10:25:00.001-07:00

For Immediate Release
Awksedgreep,
The Coordinated Press

In some rather odd news today the US Dollar has been purchased by China and Japan. Now owning 53% of the bonds issued as reserves for the currency. While the new owners have yet to exert major influence on the company, insiders say it is just a matter of time. One of the reasons cited by the new owners is the belligerent existing senior team, which will likely all be asked to resign and may well be brought up on corruption charges. One noted Austrian economist and Presidential candidate, Ron Paul, suggested that this is just one of many hints that restructure and reform is needed. This would also imply that the end of the monopoly/hegemony has already taken place.

The financial team is scrambling with hostile takeovers and many threats to keep the status quo, but so far the rhetoric has not been successful. It is likely that the financial team will be relieved of its duties and conservative alternatives put in their place.

The senior team is being charged with corruption and analysts predict that this hardship will last at least 20 years and will affect the entire company. This will likely cause massive layoffs and result in the largest corporate downsizing in history.

The US Dollar company is a fascist, for profit, institution which should exist by the people for the people and provide for the common good. This had been the case until 1913 when a new financial team was hired to keep the books, but have since run the business into the ground. The press office can be reached at press@whitehouse.gov

Pay it forward

2007-05-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

Having already spent quite a bit on the campaign I keep thinking about how much this all could possibly cost us . . . but then I realize . . .

How much I'd be saving on the inflation tax . . .
How much I'd be saving on the income tax . . .
How much I'd be saving on the big government tax . . .
How much I'd be saving on my personal liberties . . .

when Ron Paul is elected president . . .

So giving more becomes a no-brainer!

Pyramids made of concrete, not pre-cut limestone blocks

2007-05-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

Fascinating article, it seems feasible to me.

The Surprising Truth Behind the Construction of the Great Pyramids

Snippet:
The stones also had a high water content-unusual for the normally dry, natural limestone found on the Giza plateau-and the cementing phases, in both the inner and outer casing stones, were amorphous, in other words, their atoms were not arranged in a regular and periodic array. Sedimentary rocks such as limestone are seldom, if ever, amorphous.

The sample chemistries the researchers found do not exist anywhere in nature. "Therefore," says Barsoum, "it's very improbable that the outer and inner casing stones that we examined were chiseled from a natural limestone block."

More startlingly, Barsoum and another of his graduate students, Aaron Sakulich, recently discovered the presence of silicon dioxide nanoscale spheres (with diameters only billionths of a meter across) in one of the samples. This discovery further confirms that these blocks are not natural limestone.

Size and Shape of the Military Industrial Complex

2007-05-22T23:05:00.000-07:00

Great article on Lew Rockwell . com about the US Military Industrial Complex . . .

U.S. Takes Gold in Arms Olympics

Snippet:
Hey, aren't we the most exceptional nation in history? George Bush and his pals thought so – and they were in a great American tradition of exceptionalism. Of course, they were imagining us as the most exceptional empire in history (or maybe at the end of it), the ultimate New Rome. Anyway, explain this to me: Among all the exceptional things we claim to do, how come we never take credit for what may be the most exceptional of all, our success of successes, the thing that makes us uniquely ourselves on this war-ridden planet – peddling more arms to Earthlings than anyone else in the neighborhood? Why do we hide this rare talent under a bushel? In the interest of shining a proud light on an under-rated national skill, I asked Frida Berrigan to return the United States to its rightful place in the Pantheon of arms-dealing nations. ~ Tom

Man bites dog again today

2007-05-22T18:39:00.000-07:00

Another wonderful article. If China has us on a short leash should we be antagonizing them?

US hears blunt trade warning from China

Snippet:
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration pushed for concrete results in high-level trade talks with China that began Tuesday, but the head of the Chinese delegation bluntly warned against confrontation.

It's not a good idea to bite the hand that feeds you. At least not until we have an alternative to the dollar. The shit could really hit the fan if we don't watch it. The arrogance is astounding.

Cutting off your head to spite your face

2007-05-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

I know, I'm a bit off on the title, but that was purposeful.

I just read this article

House approves bill to challenge OPEC

Snippet:
WASHINGTON - Decrying near-record high gasoline prices, the House voted Tuesday to allow the government to sue OPEC over oil production quotas.

The dollar is in serious shape and this is primarily so due to the reduction in energy exchanges(oil bourses) which take the US dollar.

We need to get used to energy suppliers like Exxon having record profits. They have us, we're completely subservient. However, it is very important that we not shake off those chains just yet. We need a backup plan for the dollar, such as the one Ron Paul is suggesting, before we bite the hand that feeds us. To kill what remains of the dollar now before an alternative is available would be WORSE than the great depression.

This is a perfect example of how important an understanding in geopolitics and macroeconomics is for members of the government. Confidence in the dollar is of utmost importance and is absolutely needed right now. I hate the fed as much as the next guy, but we need to be realistic.

Gleaming Intelligence from the Current Yen Carry Trade

2007-05-20T21:45:00.000-07:00

There is much to be learned from reviewing monetary events around the world. Generally history is more enlightening than current events, however watching the yen carry trade unfold has me a bit concerned.

I'd like to paint a situation where the American public wakes up and realizes it's not in their best interest to keep borrowing and spending. The rates on the Yen are nearly zero and they are having trouble finding anyone willing to borrow the money. What if this were to happen in the US?

Step 1: China completely stops their investment in US Bonds.
Step 2: Fed has a knee-jerk reaction and lowers interest rates.
Step 3: Confidence in the dollar drops around the world and banks start dumping their reserve dollars back onto the market at an even faster, more alarming rate.
Step 4: China sees this crisis getting completely out of hand and starts cashing out their bonds to invest elsewhere.

So those sound like entirely possible events given the recent news that China has created a committee to explore and indeed start diversifying investments out of the dollar. They have been buying natural resources, including gold and silver mines, in Africa. They have been buying up land and buildings around the world. It is entirely possible that we could see this nightmare scenario in the coming months or years.

This represents a perfect storm of liquidity for the US Dollar. It represents the end of our ability to tax the world to fund our expensive government. The world is fed up, pardon the pun and aren't going to take it any more.

It is VITAL that we vote for Ron Paul. Not only does he understand this, he has the unique perspective on how to survive such an event. Smaller government is key.

Gold and Inflation

2007-05-20T20:55:00.001-07:00

For those of you who aren't interested in truly understanding macroeconomics I wanted to post a simple overview of precious metals and why they should be in your portfolio.

Inflation Tax: The monetary systems of the world work on a fractional reserve system. Essentially, this means that money does have some basis, but is printed at a substantially larger rate than it is invested in the monetary base. If that ratio(fraction) is 7:1 then 1 dollar must be held in order to print 7. This all seems crooked, but somewhat reasonable and accepted now.

Supply and demand: Two great economies are reaching a tipping point currently. They are India and China. The middle class in both of these countries fully understands what a great investment vehicle Gold and Silver are and will be increasing their purchases as their ability to do so improves. Both of these countries understand the dire straits the dollar is in currently and are working diligently to build a replacement middle class in the east to consume the goods produced.

Banks and inflation perception: Banks are inflating at record rates. The reasons for this are fairly simple. The US Dollar is being inflated at extreme rates and to keep the prices of exports low the central banks around the world are inflating at HIGHER rates to keep their respective currencies lower than the dollar. The banks don't want this information in public hands or want the consumer prices to reflect this inflation. One of the indicators of how much they are inflating is the price of gold. Therefore the central banks dump gold on the market at a steady rate to keep the price down.

Gold and Silver are very much like a compressed spring at this point. When the downward pressure from the banks releases even a little, Gold and Silver prices will launch at amazing rates.

Welcome to my blog

2007-05-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

I'm a developer by trade and have deep interests in Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Ron Paul presidential campaign, and austrian macroeconomics.

Most of my posts will involve these topics.

Welcome and 'njoy,
Mark