Jonathan Starr's Blog

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Hillary as Darth: I try not to get too political in this blog, but I could not resist the Star Wars references!

Enjoy,

Jon; posted @ Sunday, May 04, 2008 1:14 PM | Feedback (0)

Friday, May 02, 2008

Every blogger I read claims to have superior coding skills, and every place I have worked claims only to hire superior developers. In my current position and in my prior one, my employers say they interviewed more than twenty candidates to fill each position.

If that's so, where are the average coders?

I heard one theory - they are all unemployed! And they keep trying to get jobs but they can't. So interviewers have a skewed sampling of coders.

I will confirm that in my current and previous position i have worked with much better developers than I had previously.

But I wonder. I have learned so much in the last year (WCF, TDD, LINQ, PLINQ, Ruby, statistical modeling techniques with third party tools, Dundas charting, advanced NAnt builds, Webparts development, Appistry fabric development, Map-Reduce algorithms, etc.) - perhaps if I were to meet my former self from a year ago I would consider myself an average programmer.

My sense is that all coders are improving by leaps and bounds each year.

And that most of us have an inflated opinion of our own coding skills.

What do you think?

Interested in your thoughts,

Jonathan

posted @ Friday, May 02, 2008 7:24 PM | Feedback (2)

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Cats - From An Engineer's Perspective: Admittedly I don't own any cats - I personally favor parrots.

But this video tickled my fancy anyway (loved the corporal cuddling - as if there were more than one kind!)

Enjoy

Jonathan; posted @ Saturday, April 12, 2008 11:02 PM | Feedback (1)

Friday, April 11, 2008

See the music

From the Zurich Chamber Orchestra

posted @ Friday, April 11, 2008 8:37 PM | Feedback (0)

Quantum Mental Health Break

It's better than MC Rove (but not by much)

posted @ Friday, April 11, 2008 7:59 PM | Feedback (0)

Friday, March 28, 2008

Beta Risk

A friend at work recently asked me to look at some of the equities he holds in his portfolio. While I am a developer, I also have an MBA in Finance; I enjoy evaluating stocks and readily agreed.

One of my friend's holdings is Wal-Mart (WMT), and I was a bit surprised to see that finance.yahoo.com listed WMT's Beta, which is a measure of a stock's risk relative to the market, as -0.14. It is uncommon to find stocks with negative Betas. Generally this means that the stock moves in the opposite direction as the market. And the low Beta value, i.e. | Beta | < 1, indicates that the stock is less risky than the S&P500.

So I performed a few calculations, and measured the Beta for WMT using closing month prices for WMT and the S&P500 for the last five years, and reproduced the number listed on Yahoo! But I retried the calculation going all the way back to 1972, and got a Beta measurement of 1.23. And then again i measured beta for WMT only using the last 24 months of data and got a measurement of -0.31. (See graphs below for details).

WMT Calculation Beta - Last 60 Months (through March 2008)

WMT Calculation Beta - Data 1972 through March, 2008

WMT Calculation Beta - Last Two Years

So, given all of the variation in Beta measurements, what is a good way for estimating future Beta for a stock? This really is an important question, as Beta dominates the function to determine the Weighted Cost of Capital for a stock. (WACC = D/C ( Kd) + E/C ( Beta x Market Rate of Return). And if you are doing Beta arbitrage (buying baskets of low Beta stocks and short selling Beta stocks), this would be crucial. (Here's an interesting article on the subject... )

I suspect that modelers should make adjustments for changing legal environments, capital structurres, dynamics between companies and their customers, suppliers, and competitors... But which changes dominate Beta changes. Can the past Beta measurements be used at all to forecast future Beta?

Any ideas out there?

Interested in your thoughts,

Jonathan Starr

posted @ Friday, March 28, 2008 7:29 PM | Feedback (0)

Monday, March 24, 2008

Flood

Some friends and relatives have been asking about the flood conditions in Fenton, MO (outside Saint Louis) so I thought I should post some pics of the affected areas. My home has not been harmed (knock on wood!), but the area around me certainly has been.

I think this is a pic of a trailer park about three miles from my house.

Another pic..

There are a few bars, a public swimming pool and a soccer field affected by the rains as well.

Tueday, Wednesday and Thursday we are expecting more rain as well (Today is Monday...)

Local stations are saying the water levels should go down fast, however.

Jonathan

posted @ Monday, March 24, 2008 6:49 PM | Feedback (1)

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

HttpModule Question: I recently implemented an HttpModule in a web project (.NET 2.0 Framework on Windows XP), and noticed some anomolous behavior... The Init method for the HttpModule does not always fire (sometimes it did however) after the web application started. I used an obvious workaround, and took advantage of the event model exposed in global.asax. But I am disturbed from what I saw.

Has anyone else noticed this anomaly? Is this something that can be fixed?

Thanks for the help!

Jonathan Starr; posted @ Tuesday, March 04, 2008 9:21 PM | Feedback (0)

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Saint Louis Microsoft Technology Calendar Updated...

improve my => 'code'

I have updated the unified Saint Louis Microsoft Technology calendar here.

Here is a quick summary:

St. Louis C# User Group 3/10/2008 6:00pm
Our guest, live from France, will be Patrick Smacchia, creator of NDepend and author of Practical C# 2 and .NET 2.

Sharepoint meeting 3/11/2008 8:30am

St Louis Sql Server User Group 3/11/2008 1:00pm
Writing better T-SQL Queries, Avoid Cursors and Dynamic SQL

CRM User Group Meeting 3/27/2008 8:30am

NET User Group Meeting 3/31/2008 5:30pm
Denny Boynton “Software as a Service”

All events take place at Three City Place Drive, Suite 1100, Creve Coeur, MO 63141

Hope to see you there!

Jonathan

posted @ Sunday, March 02, 2008 11:19 PM | Feedback (0)

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Buddhabrot

I apologize for not writing into the blog for some time.

A few weeks ago, I attended the wedding of my good friend, Michael Bittel. His blog on Africa, while it is updated infrequently, certainly certainly helps me keep things in perspective.

Also, I have continued to do some work for www.1CCN.com . Please check out this web site/ phone application for project management if you, or someone you know, is in the construction industry. We recently added the ability to add pictures to status updates. Hopefully this will be useful to someone.

I started a new job recently for a startup company here in Saint Louis, MO. One of my new co-workers showed me this interesting rendition of the Mandelbrot Set (yeah, I'm a big fan). Basically, instead of using real numbers to create the set, the renderer used complex numbers... And the results are pretty eerie... Looks like a buddha!

Hope everyone reading this entry is doing well,

Jonathan

Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification

posted @ Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:14 PM | Feedback (1)

Friday, January 25, 2008

LINQ and Financial Simulation

improve my => 'code'

I just started playing around with LINQ seriously, and I really love some of the features incorporated, like the Enumerable.Range() function and how it can be used for integer programming.

Here's a simple function for generating lognormal distributions (could be useful for financial engineering).

Hope you're enjoying the samples,

Jonathan Starr

public List<double> GenerateLogNormalDistribution(int numberOfTimes, double mean, double standardDeviation)

{

Random randomGenerator = new Random();

var randomNumbers = from theNumbers in Enumerable.Range(1,

numberOfTimes).Select(x => randomGenerator.Next(1,

1000)/1000.0)

select theNumbers;

List<double> results = new List<double>();

randomNumbers.ToList().ForEach

(x => results.Add(mean + (standardDeviation * (Math.Sqrt(-2 * Math.Log(x)) * Math.Cos(6.28 * x)))));

return results;

}

posted @ Friday, January 25, 2008 8:00 PM | Feedback (3)

Surprising CLR Behavior

improve my => 'code'

The following code (surprise, surprise) compiles. But it does not work as intended (you won't be able to "doSomethingElse()!

Can any of you figure out why? (I have my suspicions.)

Jonathan Starr

using System;

namespace test

{

internal class BaseTest

{

private int _prop1;

public virtual int prop1

{

get { return _prop1; }

set { _prop1 = value; }

}

internal class DerivedTest : BaseTest

{

public override int prop1

{

set { base.prop1 = value; doSomethingElse(); }

}

posted @ Friday, January 25, 2008 4:45 PM | Feedback (0)

Response to Brainteaser #11?: I have been pretty excited about LINQ, because it seems to do all of the optimization for me for free (kinda like T-SQL).

Yow Han-Lee asks in his blog, Brainteaser #11, Given any two large List, what is the quickest way to find the mutual intersection of the two? Now take into consideration memory constraints?

Well, the answer that only takes a minute or two for me is the following...

Comments welcome!

Jonathan Starr

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace orderlisttest
{

    internal class Number
    {
        private int _Num1;
        public int Num1
        {
            get { return _Num1; }
            set { _Num1 = value; }
        }

        public Number(int theNumber)
        {
            this._Num1 = theNumber;
        }

    }
    public class start
    {

        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var bigList1 = new List<Number>();
            var bigList2 = new List<Number>();

            for (int counter = 0; counter < 100000; counter++)
            {
                Random randomGenerator = new Random();
                int number = randomGenerator.Next(10000000);
                bigList1.Add(new Number(number));

                int number2 = randomGenerator.Next(10000000);
                bigList2.Add(new Number(number2));
            }

            var Found = from o1 in bigList1
                        join o2 in bigList2 on o1.Num1 equals o2.Num1
                        select new { o1.Num1 };

            Console.WriteLine(Found.Count().ToString() + " items were found in common.");
        }

     }

}; posted @ Friday, January 25, 2008 3:23 PM | Feedback (0)

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Beauty.Equals(Truth) ?

improve my => 'code'

I noticed an entry on Wikipedia that made me smile.

SPL or the Shakespeare Programming Language is, in the words of Wikipedia, "designed to make programs appear to be something other than programs; in this case, Shakespearean plays. "

Variables in code are treated like characters in a Shakespearean play. Variables must "enter" to be useable (allocated?) and "exit" to be declare out of scope... And variables speak their mind to output to the console. For instance,

[Enter Juliet]
[Enter Romeo and Juliet]

Hamlet:
Thou art as sweet as the sum of the sum of Romeo and his horse and his black cat! Speak thy mind!

[Exit Romeo]
[Exeunt Romeo and Juliet] [Exeunt]

My only point is - Do you write your code pleasing to the eye? Or is it a jumble of symbols barely comprehensible?

I am all for bringing a sense of beauty to our coding, and am open to suggestions.

Interested in your comments,

Jonathan Starr

posted @ Tuesday, January 22, 2008 1:58 PM | Feedback (0)

Monday, January 21, 2008

The Sesame Street Presentation Rule - Not #1

I just read through Jeff Atwood's recent post - The Sesame Street Presentation Rule - and it warrants a reaction.

The most important feature of a presentation is that it communicates how you can benefit your audience. People are not actively trying to fund cartoons or quips as much as they are looking out for their own very personal needs (whatever that is). So, it is vital that we analyze our audience for their needs - as needs differ.

Employees are generally interested in security, and possibilities for advancement. Investors generally look for quick and sizable returns on investment. If you focus on the particular interests of your audience, there is very little need to be funny.

Humor can help - I will concede. But it is so difficult to be funny.

Hey, Jeff Atwoods' blog is a case in point. Really not very funny, but he satisfies the needs of his readers to explore quirky topics.

Interested in your thoughts,

Jonathan

posted @ Monday, January 21, 2008 2:53 PM | Feedback (0)

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Thought Experiment: Reforming Meetings

I just read an excellent article posted on XKCD on how to create a better IRC chat.

Basically, to keep chats interesting, the server boots out users who enter things already entered before.

Wouldn't that be good for corporate meetings? The rule could be amended: If someone says anything said before (even using different words), the person cannot speak again for the duration of the meeting.

Imagine how much shorter meetings would be with this rule. No more endless repetitions. No more wasted time.

Another nice side effect is that meeting attendees might pay more attention to what is said - because they are enforcing the rule!

Interested in you thoughts,

Jonathan Starr

posted @ Wednesday, January 16, 2008 5:31 PM | Feedback (0)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Automatic Properties in C# - A Critique: improve my => 'code'
In the latest release of Orcas, one of the new features provided is "Automatic Properties" which allows developers to use a shorthand like the following:

    public class Person {

        public string FirstName {
            get; set;
        }

        public string LastName {
            get; set;
        }

        public int Age {
            get; set;
        }
    }

and the compiler knows to interpret this as

    public class Person {

        private string _firstName;
        private string _lastName;
        private int _age;

        public string FirstName {

            get {
                return _firstName;
            }
            set {
                _firstName = value;
            }
        }

        public string LastName {

            get {
                return _lastName;
            }
            set {
                _lastName = value;
            }
        }

        public int Age {

            get {
                return _age;
            }
            set {
                _age = value;
            }
        }
    }

Prima facie, this looks like a good thing. The developer is typing less code, and still has hooks in property accessors to perform validation, or needed side effects from value changes.

But I have a few problems with this shorthand.

Criticism 1

Why is this shorthand needed when there is a snippet (prop) that provides full property accessors, with better hooks for inserting custom actions like validation?

Criticism 2

I think that the shorthand looks too much like the signature of a method normally found in an interface, not a class. The only difference appears to be an access modifier. So I find the shorthand syntax is confusing...

What do you think?

Jonathan Starr; posted @ Tuesday, January 15, 2008 8:00 PM | Feedback (3)

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Instructional Video #3 for Mobile Phone Project management

I did one more video with a friend today for 1CCN.COM - which is a mobile phone project management toolset custom designed for the construction industry.

The video below shows you how a user can add time entries via mobile phone to a project.

I am very interested in your comments! Is the video easy to understand?

Jonathan

posted @ Sunday, January 13, 2008 8:17 PM | Feedback (0)

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Reminder

improve my => 'code'

Just a quick reminder to the Saint Louis developers out there. There is another Saint Louis .NET User Group meeting on Monday, January 14th at 2 City Place.

Details are here in the updated Saint Louis Microsoft Technology calendar.

Hope to see you there!

Jonathan

posted @ Saturday, January 12, 2008 9:46 PM | Feedback (0)

1st Instructional Video: I have been helping a friend finish a mobile web application for his new business (www.1CCN.com), and posted below are my first attempts for making instructional videos. Windows Movie Maker (which comes with Vista) was a blast - really easy to use.

Any comments are appreciated - btw, we will be adding Ajax to the budget entries tomorrow.

Thanks!

Jonathan

Adding a contact to the Contractors' Collaborative Network

Creating a Project in the Contractors' Collaborative Network; posted @ Saturday, January 12, 2008 8:55 PM | Feedback (0)

Friday, January 11, 2008

Critique of Richard Bookstaber's, “A Demon of Our Own Design”

I just finished Richard Bookstaber's new book, A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation, and he makes some fair points.

He asks a very important question in the book, in my opinion, “Why have economic cycles become less extreme while financial cycles have become more extreme?”.

After all, our knowledge of financial instruments has increased over time, we use computer applications to help us hedge risk in better ways today, and we have better and more reliable streams of information for traders to navigate today's financial waters.

His answer, which I find intriguing, is that liquidity is the most important determinant of short term price swings (which is very different from the conventional answer - fear and greed). He points out that financial instruments with different risk profiles quickly became correlated with each other because they were packaged together. (Perhaps traders now have better means of smelling blood in the waters as well?)

I suppose this may be the reason we see Bank of America purchasing Countrywide today. Bank of America had a lot of information about Countrywide because of their $2 Bn in the company over the summer, and they probably realized that providing liquidity to Countrywide's positions would not only enhance the value of today's $4Bn takeover, but also the existing $2 Bn investment made earlier.

Interested in your thoughts,

Jonathan

posted @ Friday, January 11, 2008 6:27 PM | Feedback (0)

Re-Adding Service References

improve my => 'code'

While using Visual Studio 2008, I made the mistake today of dropping and re-adding a WCF service reference. If you do this, not all of the service operations and exposed proxy types are recreated in the References.cs file.

If you made my mistake, cleaning the solution (right click on the solution and choose -> Clean Solution) will clear out the problem.

And in the future, I will be updating service references instead.

Hope this helps you out!

Jonathan

posted @ Friday, January 11, 2008 5:30 PM | Feedback (0)

Monday, January 07, 2008

Motivating Developers

I was just reading Jeff Atwood's post - The Magpie Developer - where he uses the metaphor of the magpie who collects shiny objects for his nest to explain why elite programmers go from one programming language to another.

Perhaps it would be more useful to think about what really motivates programmers generally. After all, while the pay is okay in our profession, most of us work in relative isolation on problems not generally of interest to the public.

Personally, I studied math as an undergrad - and the study of patterns interests me. Creating systems to analyze and distribute changing informaiton intrigues me.

Later on, I earned an MBA, where I learned a great deal about leverage - mostly using people or money as leverage. But it occured to me that in the Information Age we live in the most efficient form of leverage may be using information technology.

So, for me, motivation comes from learning new patterns (I still get a kick out of learning new design patterns) and finding ways to use the web, or mobile devices, to create leverage.

I would guess that there are many other good motivations for becoming an excellent developer:

- The creative instinct to produce something new.

- The instinct to make something perfect (performant with accurate results). (I think excellent developers are definitely prefectionists to some degree.)

- The instinct to solve an important problem - or just a puzzle...

- The instinct to show off to geek friends.

- The instinct to improve your skillsets to make your career more stable.

What motivates you as a developer?

Interested in your thoughts,

Jonathan Starr

posted @ Monday, January 07, 2008 5:26 PM | Feedback (2)

Monday, December 31, 2007

An Inalienable Right to Privacy - My Reaction

I was just reading through Jeff Atwood's excellent blog post, An Inalienable Right to Privacy, and I could not agree with him more. We as consumers must demand that our privacy be respected by (1) not providing information when it is not needed and (2) purchasing from vendors that respect our privacy.

I will go further, however.

We need to have laws on the books that allow us to sue corporations and individuals who abuse our private financial information and contact information. The Do-Not-Call list is not enough in my opinion.

Identity theft is an extremely serious issue, and the vendor who negligently releases private information should be as liable as the individual who tries to abuse it later in my opinion.

What do you think?

Jonathan Starr

posted @ Monday, December 31, 2007 4:50 PM | Feedback (0)

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Just how good are the Patriots

The Patriots are currently 15-0, and are looking to become the second team to ever have a perfect regular season.

But, how good are the Patriots really? Perhaps they are just lucky?

P(Winning Each Game)	P(Going 15-0)
50%	0.003%
75%	1.336%
90%	20.589%
95.4842%	50.000%

From the chart above, if the Patriots really had a 50% chance of winning each of the first 15 games, then they were certainly lucky. Not quite lottery winning lucky, but a team with a true 50% chance of winning each game should only have an 0.003% chance of winning the first 15 openers.

So what is a good estimate of the Patriot's winning chances against an average team, (on the premise that are initial conditions are held constant for the playing season)? Looks like 95.5% is a good guess based on this season alone.

Another thing you might want to keep in mind is that the Patriots won 21 games in a row (18 regular season, 3 post-season) in the 2003-2004 seasons.

Pretty cool, huh? Hope you get to catch the game against the Giants this Saturday at 8 pm EST (It will be on ABC and NBC)...

Enjoy,

Jonathan Starr

posted @ Thursday, December 27, 2007 4:46 PM | Feedback (0)

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