More about SARS, very much second-hand. Without testing, we wouldn't have caught the second outbreak until it had started to spread again. And we could have a third and a fourth outbreak, happily killing doctors and nurses. Outbreak 1: Let's kill all the doctors It didn't take much testing to get started, because the second… Continue reading Memories of SARS 2: Testing
Memories of SARS 1: Tracking
I was never part of the effort, but I got to hear the war stories from the people who were, when we built a new cluster for one of the epidemiological tracking systems. And it was very much like a war: if you were one of the nurses and doctors, you made up one third… Continue reading Memories of SARS 1: Tracking
What my company’s doing for COVID-19
As some of you know, I'm still working full-time in Toronto, where we learned a lot from the SARS epidemic. This is how a smart organization stops the spread of the virus by social distancing at the company level. The Company Stuff First of all, we're acting immediately to cut down the opportunity for transmission.… Continue reading What my company’s doing for COVID-19
Engineers are Birds
This picture is of a flock of starlings, who we see flying in tight formation as if they knew what every other bird was going to do. But birds aren't supposed to be telepathic. Oddly enough, I just came off a project where engineers also acted that way, as if they were all of one… Continue reading Engineers are Birds
Guaranties are limits, in the limit
One of the things I like to do is to challenge myself with interesting problems in computer science. It's fun to see if I can figure out how to solve them, now that someone has done it. Intro One particular thing I’d love to do is provide minimum resource guarantees to customers of a program,… Continue reading Guaranties are limits, in the limit
Errors, as if they were in a safety-critical system
In some systems, errors are really evil. Trains running into cars at railroad crossings, for example. In computer programs, the errors aren't of that seriousness, but what if we looked at them from the viewpoint of someone doing safety-critical systems? Many moons ago, I attended Jonathan Ostroff's course on safety-critical systems, which studied things like… Continue reading Errors, as if they were in a safety-critical system
Two Technological Contributions to Modernizing PIPEDA
This is my submission to the Director, Privacy and Data Protection Policy Directorate, Innovation, Science and Economic Development on the modernization of PIPEDA. I’d like to bring to your attention two existing technologies which deserve your consideration, to enable them to implement privacy protection and preserve reputation while still addressing free speech rights. • In the… Continue reading Two Technological Contributions to Modernizing PIPEDA
Managers and Flow
I was just at a conference, and all the talks aimed at management were, well, low density. Two sentences of information in a 30-minute talk, for example. Normally I would make jokes about it, but I've been a director and they didn't seem that dumb back then... My usual response was the Dilbert joke, "welcome… Continue reading Managers and Flow
Agile is Anal, and that’s good
I got dragged into an Agile project many years back, and expected to hate it. My background was with fixed-price and (semi-)formal-methods projects, so I was wasn't expecting to enjoy the experience. I was pleasantly surprised: the people I was working with were every bit as disciplined and quality-driven as anyone I'd ever encountered in… Continue reading Agile is Anal, and that’s good
Even a little bit helps
On performance projects, I'm usually looking for bugs or bad decisions that have cost my customers orders of magnitude of performance. This week, I needed to quantify the value of 0.01 second. A customer had an old program that responded to a REST query in a tenth of a second and a brand-new version that… Continue reading Even a little bit helps
