On the night of 22/23 March 1944, RAF Bomber Command sent approximately 6324 airmen into action for its second large raid on Frankfurt. 816 aircraft took part: 12 Mosquito pathfinders, 180 Halifaxes, and 720 Lancasters. A total of 180 men…
Talend ODI is my new favourite toy. I recently inherited a Spring Batch project for running a complex chain of XML processing, but decided to put it down after I became frustrated with the amount of work required to make changes….
Java was outlawed after an on-line hockey pool suffered a gravitational collapse and formed a black hole. It was formed by the mass of RAM needed to run the application exceeding the Chandrasekhar limit. Java programmers went into hiding or…
Using TestNG and Selenium together is an excellent way to exercise a web application. TestNG’s data-driven approach to testing makes it easy to get search terms, evil cookies, and credentials from file, making it possible for non-developers to add new…
The craft of programming is easy to start, but very difficult to master. It’s a long road, littered with the detritus of failed projects, and deep ditches of obsolescence on either side. On we plod. We all have stories of…
Guest post by S. I am writing today because I want to tell you about dolphins. Dolphins are not fish, they are mammals and they are also very intelligent. There are 30 to 40 different types of dolphins. We shouldn’t…
A mauled robin expired in my hands as I looked for a quiet place to leave it, safe from crows and cats. I’m sure I cut a fine figure stumbling around my yard at dawn with a bird. I have…
Visualising data with trees is fun, and in rare cases, useful. It is difficult to get customers to approve spending time on what to many is an esoteric field. They need to be shown concrete examples, preferably with case studies…
I don’t have much to add about the recent revelations of NSA collection activities, or the news media’s feeble attempts to investigate further. However I would like to draw your attention to what may be the stupidest thing written about…
We have all had the experience of walking into a room and forgetting why we went in the first place. Recent work from door scientists suggests memory takes context into account, dumping short-term items when the setting changes, like when…