Song of the Week

Music:

an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.

I believe music is one of the key differences between humans and the rest of the animals on this world. Music communicates emotion strictly through sound — from joy to sorrow, anger to love. It can lift us up when we are down, helping us through troubled times. Music will cause us to sit in contemplation or dance with glee.

We connect with music.

Throughout my life I have connected deeply with music. It has helped me through many tough times in my life and brought me great joy in others. Music has taken some of the best moments of my life and made them better, and helped me reflect back on others.

I want to share the music that connects with me in case it should connect with someone else. Every week I will be posting a different song that I have connected with in some way. Take a listen. If you like it, add the song to your library. If you don’t, wait until the following week; we all like something a little different.

I also want to hear what music you connect with. Send suggestions to songoftheweek@colincwilliams.com. I promise I’ll listen, and may post it as part of the series.

Remember, life is an Open Road; turn up the radio and sign along.

Purchase Open Road, by Bryan Adams:

• Amazon
• Google Play
• Groove Music
• iTunes

Trudeau Meter

This is convenient and worth checking back on in the future:

The TrudeauMetre is a non-partisan collaborative citizen initiative that tracks his performance with regards to his electoral platform.

What is a coder's worst nightmare?

Mick Stute on Quora, answering the question “What is a coder’s worst nightmare?”:

I was hired by a psychologist to fix a program that seemed to have “strange output” written by one of his ex-grad students. It was a program that reads a data file, asks about 50 questions, does some calculations, and comes up with some score based on this PhD’s research. It’s on a research 3B2 at the university. He demonstrates the program and sure enough there seemed to be strange flashing words on the screen when it moves from question to question, and they don’t seem nice.

[...]

This ought to be simple. There are only about five places it could output anything, and all of them had this subliminal flash of a message. Each one was hard coded. No problem. Delete the offending mvpwintw() and all is well. Or should be. I compile, thinking I’m done. But when I ran it, there it is again -- the subliminal messages. This time with different text still the same subject, just different messages.

I check my code and believe it or not it’s back to the initial state I found it. 15 files, mangled, 3-letter variables -- the whole thing right back where I started.

That’s just the start and it only gets better from there. The end result truly is a programmer’s worst nightmare, though I won’t ruin the ending. Well worth the read.

Nissan Titan XD, Heavy Half

Most of the numbers for the new Nissan Titan XD are now released, along with first drive reviews. I particularly liked the reviews from TFL Truck, PickupTrucks.com and TruckTrend.

The Titan XD is interesting due to how Nissan is marketing it as a “heavy half”.

The components seem to bear this out. Many core components of the Titan XD resemble a 3/4 ton truck. From the V-8 Cummins diesel engine and Aisin transmission, to the larger rear differential and brakes, the Titan XD is different than regular half tons. Its GVWR and curb weight are also notably higher than the rest of the half tons, at 8,800 and 6,709 pounds respectively, classifying it as a heavy duty from the perspective of the government.

You would be forgiven for expecting those components to result in impressive capacity numbers, but they turn out to be anticlimactic:

Note: All numbers are the maximum values for 4x2 Crew Cab models.

While the Titan XD does have the highest towing capacity of the half tons at 12,314 pounds, it is by a small margin and doesn’t approach the starting capacity of 14,000 pounds for 3/4 ton trucks. Payload capacity is only mid-range, with the F-150 being the standout in the segment.

So what will those beefier components provide, exactly? Durability and reliability when the truck is used consistently at its limits, particularly with regards to towing. Wear and tear should be minimized while safety and control will be maximized, similar to that of a 3/4 ton truck at those capacities. Making up for the average capacity numbers, according to first drive reviews, the Titan XD still maintains the ride quality of a half-ton, being noticeably quieter and smoother than the heavy duty trucks especially when empty.

With the caveat that I haven’t seen the Titan XD in person, I believe Nissan truly has created a “heavy-half”. The question now is whether there is a market for it.

Ideology

Matt Gemmell, on ideologies after the Paris attacks:

When acts of terrorism are committed, we feel shock, and grief, and of course anger. We rush to find a target for these emotions, so they can be carried outwards, away from ourselves; we need a focus. Radical, militant Islamists are the flavour of the moment. We identify them as Muslims, and there’s the target for our outrage.

It’s the wrong target. Not because militant Islamists aren’t (in their view, at least) Muslims, but just the opposite. They’re extremists. They don’t represent an entire faith, or set of ethnicities, or collection of countries. But they want to.

For some time now I have been trying to compose my thoughts about the differences between extremist and religious groups — they are very different — and Matt Gemmell expressed my thoughts more eloquently than I ever could.

A Proud Time to be Canadian

According to Vox, Canada has accepted over 36,000 Syrian refugees since 2013, with only Germany having taken in more. Considering Canada is an ocean away from Syria, this is quite impressive and makes me incredibly proud to be Canadian. It truly exemplifies our values and beliefs.

Apparently some Americans haven’t heard this news, since Global News reports they are threatening to move to Canada if the US takes in more Syrian refugees:

Disgruntled Americans voiced their threats of heading north of the border on social media this week as the U.S. debates whether to open its doors to those fleeing the Syrian crisis.

Personally, I think we shouldn’t tell them; they might just like it once they move. Welcome to Canada, eh.

Subscription Options

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My latest addition to the list is email subscription, provided by the awesome MailChimp. By subscribing you will get an email every Friday with a summary of all posts from the previous week.

Pick a subscription option that works for you, or keep checking the site and enjoy! Thank you for reading.

Slack is My World

Ben Brooks on modern, text-based communication:

We are not anti-social, we just don’t see the need to for wasting time on unclear communication avenues where you cannot easily share work.

A Driver's Car

In the automotive world there are many types of vehicles.

The average sedan or minivan are mundanely practical.

Jeeps and other SUVs inspire exploration.

Pickup trucks are workhorses, adapting to many purposes.

Sports cars are fun and entertaining.

Then there are the driver’s cars. Inspired by dreams. Built with passion. Fueled by desire. They beg to be driven.

Welcome to the Mustang GT350 - a driver’s car.

Warthog Jump (2002)

Halo Combat Evolved will forever be one of my favorite games, and the original Warthog one of my favorite in-game vehicles. Add some excellent editing, a great soundtrack and a lot of time, you get a very entertaining short video of flying Warthogs created by Randall Glass:

I created this over a weekend back in February 2002 with an Xbox, Halo CE, a VCR, and my old blue & white Mac running iMovie.

Enjoy.