Doug Hilton's Blog

JOX (Java Objects in XML)

Through the company I work for, I have been set up as a contributing author to the JOX project hosted by SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/projects/jox/. We are using XML to transport request and response data between our presentation tier written in VB.NET and our Middle Tier which is written in J2EE. I know it's not the best of the options, but that is the way things were designed and I have to live with that. My recent task has been to switch out the previous XML serializer with this new one (JOX). Being that the authors seem to have abandoned it, at least have not worked on it in a while, and that we needed a few changes made to make it work properly for us, we decided to talk to them about becoming contributing authors. They granted us that role and now we can give back to the open source community, as well as get the JOX project up to date and add many new features. Once I get a viable build together and committed to CVS, I'll list out the changes we made here as well as on the SF site.

Another reason for this post is to provide myself with a link to the JavaDoc HOWTO site since I will need to make sure the JavaDoc comments are up to date for JOX as well as correct. I've never been good about commenting my code, but that will all have to change now I guess.

Star Wars Fan Film Awards

Thanks to a link off of slashdot, I stumbled upon the 2005 Star Wars Fan Film Awards website. I'll have to take some time over the next week or so and watch some of these. The Star Wars fan fiction I've read in the past has been interesting, and I expect these to not disappoint. I'll let everyone know what my favorite is.

Super MonkeyBall clone for PC

For those of my friends that really like Super Monkey Ball for the game consoles, I have found a free, open source, clone for the PC. It runs great on LInux, not sure about windows, but it should work with the proper libraries installed from the .NET framwork. Check out neverball and let me know what you think.

Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Yesterday, the US Senate voted to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge up in Alaska. This has been a hot debate for a while now, and previous attempts to push a bill through congress has failed. Well, this time the bill managed to pass the Senate by a vote of 51-49.
This turn of events deeply troubles me. Reading the article on MSNBC, it's not looking like opening this area up to drilling will have a large, if any, effect on the price of oil and our dependence on foreign imports. They are talking about not even leasing land until 2007, and oil would not begin flowing out of the area until 10 years after that. Why not take the next 12 years, and investigate other energy alternatives? Wait, that has been tried, but it's all about the bottom line, the (very weak) US Dollar.

What really angers me beyond the deliberate destruction of our wild resources, is that this vote went mostly along party lines, with all of the Democrats voting no and most of the Republicans voting yes. The Republicans like to refer to themselves as the party of morals. They ran agains Gore on the morality platform, and they continue to try to introduce moral (regligious) ideals into our legislation. What moral lesson is this teaching our children where it's worth the price of a few million dead or disturbed animals just to make a couple of dollars? One of my favorite wildlife photographers' mantra is "no photograph is worth sacrificing the welfare of the subject". Moose Peterson's mantra may be specific to his line of work, but the general idea is something that the entire world should adopt.
I applaud the few Republicans that voted with their conscious and said "no" to the passing of this bill, but more work needs to be done to educate our lawmakers and populous at large of the dangers of tinkering with the balance of nature for a small profit.

People will sign anything

I've heard of petitions being passed around years ago as an experiment to show peoples willingness to jump on a band wagon and support any cause, even if the cause is unfounded and ludacris. I have to wonder if what fortune popped up today is the basis of one of those petitions.

Oxygen is a very toxic gas and an extreme fire hazard. It is fatal in
concentrations of as little as 0.000001 p.p.m. Humans exposed to the
oxygen concentrations die within a few minutes. Symptoms resemble very
much those of cyanide poisoning (blue face, etc.). In higher
concentrations, e.g. 20%, the toxic effect is somewhat delayed and it
takes about 2.5 billion inhalations before death takes place. The reason
for the delay is the difference in the mechanism of the toxic effect of
oxygen in 20% concentration. It apparently contributes to a complex
process called aging, of which very little is known, except that it is
always fatal.

However, the main disadvantage of the 20% oxygen concentration is in the
fact it is habit forming. The first inhalation (occurring at birth) is
sufficient to make oxygen addiction permanent. After that, any
considerable decrease in the daily oxygen doses results in death with
symptoms resembling those of cyanide poisoning.

Oxygen is an extreme fire hazard. All of the fires that were reported in
the continental U.S. for the period of the past 25 years were found to be
due to the presence of this gas in the atmosphere surrounding the buildings
in question.

Oxygen is especially dangerous because it is odorless, colorless and
tasteless, so that its presence can not be readily detected until it is
too late.
-- Chemical & Engineering News February 6, 1956

Review of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code

Last night, I finished reading what I would consider the best novel I have read in years. It's been a long time since I've read something that has been able to keep my interest and make we want to continue reading. The book is very well written with lucid descriptions of the places and events surrounding the plot, and the ideas presented are thought prevoking to say the least. My impressions are below, but there may be some spoilers, so be careful.

The Da Vinci Code has come under and enormous amount of criticism by Opus Dei, the Catholic Church, and Christians the world over because of it's depictions of a few radical memebers of the organizations and of course, the underlying principle of the novel. I can't recal having read any more passionate reviews of this book than those posted by the people most upset by it. There seems to be a lot of mindless character assassination and sheer hatred towards Dan Brown for illuminating what he, and may scholars, believes to be the truth about the early Catholic Church and their attempts to gain power.
One review I read attacked the title of the book, saying that "Da Vinci" was not a name used in the academic world to refer to the great Leonardo DaVinci, but was in fact the name of the province in which he made his home. While technically correct, I don't believe this is a valid "attack" due to the recognizability of "Da Vinci" over just "Leonardo". It's little things like this that make me discredit the review as simply unintelligent, blind faith based, rhetoric.
There are also a number of other reviews and official statements from the organizations named in the book stating that their portrayal is completely wrong. Their main complaint is that they are portrayed as murderers and a dark, secret, society bent on self mutilation and deprevation. While there are a few members of every society that take fanatacism to a whole new level, Dan Brown is very careful to state that the actions of these characters do not reflect the society as a whole. Again, in my opinion, they are searching for inaccuracies to further their point that it is a work of fiction, and the Bible is the only book of fact about the church.
One point Dan Brown is very careful to make is that he is not discrediting the existence of God or a God, but is addressing the controversy surrounding the origins and decendence of Jesus Christ as well as the early church's attempts to cover this up in what amouts to the largest conspiracy theory in the history of the world. He seems to be careful not to downplay the christian faith, but to attack the early church for their political hunger for control, and their willingness to demonise all that was sacred in the ancient religions.
The true origins and beginnings of the Christian religion, as well as the existence and contents of a "Holy Grail" may never be known, but this book does a good job of putting forward some of the current theories backed by historic documents and years of research by counless acclaimed historians. Yes, there are inaccuracies throught the book, but every theory has it's inaccuracies. Religion is rooted in faith, those that chose to believe, will and those that chose to believe, won't, regardless of the imperical evidence placed before them in either direction.
I must say, however, thanks to this novel and Dan Browns willingness and ability to confront such a controversial topic, I am once again, interested in taking the time out of my day to read. Something that had been lost for a long time.