The intellectual equivalent of a ham sandwich.

Posts tagged ‘Weekly Wacko’

SysML, UML, and My Most Ambitious Self

The other day I was at work and my buddy Juicebox and I took a walk around the building. This is a good thing to do when you can’t solve a problem, or the system is down, or you’re going a little nuts.

Juicebox was sharing with me a list that he had made on his phone of all the movies he owned. The list was alphabetized and everything. About halfway through the list I realized it wasn’t him rattling off movies he had memorized, he was reading from a list.

“Wait you wrote all this down?”
“Yeah it was from the other day when I was studying.”

You see, Juicebox, BattleToad (another friend) and I are studying SysML. In the words of Inigo Montoya … “Let me explain … No, there is too much. Let me sum up …”

First came UML, or the Unified Modeling Language. UML, like any other language, has grammar and syntax rules. Unlike the English language, you express yourself with UML via diagrams and pictures. The language is used to help design and explain software (code). Let’s say you work with a bunch of coders, and then you have to explain what you are doing … There’s a chance you will confuse people because you’ll explain something to death or go off on a tangent (favorite hobbies of my coworkers and I).

If you know the rules of drawing, and someone who doesn’t know code knows the rules of drawing, you just draw a picture using this language and wha-la, everyone is wiser for it. Now everyone knows exactly what you’re trying to build.

SysML is Systems Modeling Language. This is an extension of UML (take 1 part UML, add a little dash of … whatever). People thought, “hey this UML is nice – I can explain difficult concepts in a different way … Why are we just using this for code?” And there you have it, SysML is born.

What’s my point?

Today I was reading SysML (borrrrrinngggggg) and I found this bit very interesting (what this sentence is talking about is how you use this high-level language to build languages that are like SysML or UML … only you can modify them to make them specific to your needs like car manufacturing or whatnot):

A language designer will look for a metaclass with some of the characteristics needed to represent the new concept and then add others and, if necessary, remove characteristics that are not required.

I read that and thought, “what an unexpectedly creepy remark.” I think it’s because of the “remove characteristics that are not required” piece. It came to me, “I should write this down and write a short story about this! Some sort of crazy genetics engineer or … Some nutcase who has a bunch of kids … Like a new take on the Island of Dr. Difficult to pronounce last name …”

Then, in a flash of clarity, I realized I would never actually write that. It was just a foolish thought based on my desire to not do homework.

(Pssst. Guess what writing about how I’m not writing is called? Metaprocrastinating! Sorry, I blame the book.)

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Happy (Belated) Mother’s Day!

Hello to all you mothers out there! I hope you had a lovely day, and that you will have a fantastic rest of the year.

For those mothers who went into motherhood knowing what to expect as far as how crazy little kids are … you’re nuts. For those mothers who went into motherhood somewhat blind and have been trying to recover while raising a good family, kudos.

When I was very little I was crazy about GI Joes (they’re still really cool). GI Joes themselves were obviously cool. The cartoon I watched about GI Joes was cool. Even commercials for GI Joes were cool! My brother’s GI Joe comic books? I never read them, but had I done that, undoubtedly cool.

It’s no surprise, then, that I wanted to create a cool atmosphere for playing with the GI Joes.

In some toy commercials the toys are shown outside in swampy areas, or in a lake, or in some woods. Well, what if you can’t play outside at that moment? You bring the woods and lake inside, DUH!

My mom, when she discovered the mess I had deliberately made, was not on board with the idea. She probably was a bit confused.

So, let’s hear it for the moms, who may sometimes think they are surrounded by tricksters … but really, we’re just goons. Calvin, take it away.

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Mistaken Identity

Recently my mom sent me an email via a website called Tidbits. It was a very nice thought. The email has a number of good restaurants to try in the Houston area. I will definitely be trying a few of them.

My mom is weird and sweet in this way (this is what I call a “countdown comment” – because after I publish this post it’s a countdown til my mom says, “so Brad, I read your blog today …”). This is sweet because my mom is looking out for me, giving me tips on fun things to do. This is weird because she lives in Arizona and keeps tabs on Houston because I live here.

Unfortunately, Tidbits is catered to women. Or, as the website called me in the email, it is catered to the “gal about town.”

What’s the natural follow-up? Automatic subscription to a Tidbits, with the next email titled, “Put your best stiletto forward.”

I’m not just any gal about town, I’m a leggy gal about town.

But wait, there’s more. From some random run I did in the past I get emails from Runner’s World magazine. Kind of annoying, kind of nice. One day I got an unexpected email from them:

“Run like a girl!”

In the email it talked about concerns women have when running that men don’t have (sports bras, Aunt Flo, and menopause). Not only does the magazine think I’m a woman, it thinks I’m an older woman.

Frankly, this old gal can’t wait for the email telling me that the Deluxe Designing Women DVD Box Set is on sale.

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