A Concurrent Affair

Apparently, Subversion is adding support for an “obliterate” command that can delete a file completely, including from the revision history.

I once had to do this because I accidentally added a license file that needed to be kept private into the repository. I had quickly deleted the license file, but it was still available in the [...]

I just performed an WordPress auto-upgrade to version 2.9.

Version 2.9 requires MySQL version 4.1.2, and 1&1 was only running version 4.0.27. However, I found out that MySQL 5.0 is also running, so I needed to export the MySQL 4.0 database, create a new MySQL 5.0 database, and import the old data. The details of this, [...]

As someone who knows what snow actually is, I’m picky about what I call snow. When my fellow Houstonians say “it’s snowing”, I tend to say “no, this is sleet1.” But I have to agree with them now: It is definitely snowing in Houston right now. It is also colder in Houston than in Bremen.

Update

Now [...]

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I was fortunate to spend a wonderful day with Walid, Corky and Corky’s family. Thank you.

I found a proof in verse of the undecidability of the halting problem, in the style of Dr Seuss, written by Geoffrey K. Pullum1. Amusing and clear at the same time.

SCOOPING THE LOOP SNOOPER: A proof that the Halting Problem is undecidable

If P warns of infinite loops, Q will quit; yet P is supposed to speak truly [...]

I received an email from Chase, and it seems to be legitimate, but gmail flags it as suspicious. No wonder, it contains the following link:

1<a href="http://click2.cardmemberservices.com/33270655.1225.1009279985663.129">www.Chase.com</a>

The domain cardmemberservices.com belongs to JPMorgan Chase as well, but it is not the same domain as visible, www.Chase.com.

I don’t click on links that take me to important account websites [...]

I guess I should mention that I changed the ConcJUnit annotations (@Test) and method name suffixes (testFoo_NOJOIN) a little bit.

I had noticed that putting a _NOJOIN suffix on a test method or using a @Test(forceThreadJoin=false) annotation entirely disabled the test thread group. That’s not really what I wanted to happen, and even if it had [...]

When testing ConcJUnit some more from inside DrJava, I noticed some weird behavior. I had a JUnit 3.8.2 version of a test, and an equivalent JUnit 4 version. Run independently, they behaved as expected (which in my line of work usually means the tests failed), but if I ran them in sequence, then the second [...]

I just migrated our Hudson continuous integration server from my workstation (finland.cs, now a Dell Studio 435 with a 2.66 GHz i7 — thanks Corky!) to denmark.cs, a dedicated server (my former workstation, a Dell Dimension 9200 with a 3 GHz Pentium 4).

The builds now take a bit longer again (currently about 10 minutes instead [...]

After attending an excellent workshop on converting CVs to resumes by the Rice Center for Student Professional Development, worked on improving my resume a bit.

First of all, I created two versions, a shorter resume (pdf) and a longer, complete curriculum vitae (pdf).

In the CV, I have included more information on my publications. Both documents still [...]

I noticed that the Houston Chronicle article I was interviewed for isn’t available on the Chronicle website anymore, so I wanted to re-post it on my blog.

From the Houston Chronicle, Jan. 9, 2009:

Legal immigrants battle red tape

Pakistan native Adeel Mehmood started building a life in Houston after the U.S. government granted him asylum more than [...]

Now I’ll take a break, then I’ll proof-read it …

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"50 in 50"

A presentation by Richard Gabriel…

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