I'm not a metal fan, but I like this one.

"We Need To Let Metal And Odin Catch The Kids Before Jesus Does!" -- HELHEIM

Funny.

An article in the April issue of MSDN magazine features an interview with Bjarne Stroustrup, the man that invented C++.  There's an interesting quote that quite eloquently and succintly sums up my distaste for Windows Workflow Foundation and BizTalk (at least the versions that I've worked with).

When asked about his feelings on IDEs and how they should (or should not) support languages and the role of the IDE in software development, Stroustrup responsed:

I'm not a heavy IDE user.  I appreciate a responsive IDE editor with understanding of my language, but I also want to be able to work without an IDE.  My desire for portability of code plays a role here.  With C++, I want to be able to understand my system from just the source code in the source files.  I actively dislike IDE mechanisms that involve trasformations or generation that cannot be represented as code fit for human consumption.

While WF does certainly generate code in the background, it's not what I would consider "code fit for human consumption".  It's messy and aesthetically unpleasing (so far as code goes).  I always inevitably end up spending quite a bit of time cleaning up the mess left by the code generation engine; there's an odd disconnect between the cleanly delineated visual design of the workflow and the mess of code that gets generated just for a dependency property.

It's been a while since we've had one of these.

This one is from Dwayne Johnson, aka, The Rock:

"I knew when I first wanted to get into this business that I was going to have to take on action roles.  But I always wanted that to be a luanching point.  I want to view the movies as school.  If I'm not learning or trying different things, then I'm not going to grow."

In celebration of this day, I think it's worth the time to listen to a recording of his historic speech.

Could the civil rights movement have had a better, more visionary, and stronger leader than MLK?  It's hard to believe so.  Let's hope that his message doesn't die and lose it's power with today's generation.

I often find myself wondering whom in our time can even be compared to the great people of years past.  Who will we remember as "great" in the decades to come?  It often seems that such people are increasingly rare these days...

I leave you with a passage from his speech which resonates with me:

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

From November 20 issue of Time:

I also am in favor of toppling dictators, establishing democracy and watching it spread painlessly throughout every region where there is no experience of it.  Not only that: I am in favor of turning sand into ice cream and guaranteeing a cone to every child in the Middle East.  But you can't turn sand into ice cream.  That is not a defect in the execution of the idea.  It is a defect in the idea itself.

-- Michael Kinsley