MVC I: Hierarchical Views

I thought I’d start this architecture blog with a post on one of the things that, traditionally, have given me the most heartburn: the implementation of view in MVC architectures. As a refresher, MVC is by now the standard architecture for most applications, web or not. It stands for Model, View, Controller. Model is the abstract representation of the data you are handling (for instance, invoices). The view is the particular representation of the data (for instance, the invoice edit screen). Continue reading

printf(“Hello, World!”);

I’ve been working on the architecture of Internet systems since 1994. It’s been a wonderful time, one that has seen software architects move collectively from obscure geekdom to running the development departments of the biggest Internet juggernauts. The best of times and the worst of times, frequently very close to each other, sometimes even coinciding. I find that the world of software needs a lot of architectural attention. You won’t agree with all my ideas of how things should work, but I guess you’ll always have an opinion about them. Continue reading

Enters Starvation Mode

One of the things calorie counters like to say is that if you don’t eat enough, then your body enters “starvation mode.” I held that to be a bit of hyperbole, akin to the notion of ketosis in Atkins Diets, but I could finally watch that happen in real time. For that, I have to thank a combination of habits I’ve developed: I wear my heart rate monitor at every workout I perform some workout every day I started calorie counting after my accident and the resulting loss of exercise and gain in weight What happened? Continue reading

Tracking Calories by Bar Code

It’s been a while now that, whenever I need to lose weight, I start calorie counting. Most recently that happened in February, when I gained 15 pounds after a bad snowboarding accident. I was incapacitated for weeks, barely able to get out of the house, and the only place close enough to walk to was the grocery store. A fancy grocery store (I live near La Jolla, after all) with the best junk groceries you could imagine. Continue reading

Rain and No Workout - the Lethal Combination

This has been a horrible winter for all of us in San Diego. The usually fairly dry city has been beset by a series of winter storms, the latest passing over my head right now. It’s an El Niño year, which always means more rain for us, and this one is particularly nasty (nothing like the 1998 season, though). Unable to get to my workout (and too lazy to replace it with something else), I decided to just eat less. Continue reading

Change Your Brain - Change Your Body

I just happened to channel surf last night and stumbled across a weight loss information segment on PBS. Daniel Amen, a psychiatrist telling his audience how he used brain scans to determine pattern and causes of overeating. All in all, an engaging two hours, and I would advise buying the DVD from the PBS site. Aside from he shock and awe-inducing pictures of brain scans of old people, football players, and alcoholics, and from the constant references to chemical imbalances that cause overeating, the focus of attention was on the notion there are different kinds of personality profiles that tend to overeat. Continue reading

The Importance of Posting Nutritional Values

I am sitting at my favorite coffee shop, Peet’s, sipping a cappuccino like I used to in the old country and eating a pastry. It’s my afternoon treat, has been for years. Only that back in Italy they’d think me weird for drinking cappuccino after lunch, without sugar, and in a 16 ounce cup. There are definitely lots of advantages to living in the United States. While I could always figure out the calorie content of my drink (which I shouldn’t drink, but sue me), things were dicey with the pastries. Continue reading

Recovery and Weight

Well, tomorrow my accident will be exactly a month old. To mark it, I’ve been following the snowboarders at the Olympics, and I’ve enjoyed both the competition and the attention it has gotten. Between Seth Wescott, Shaun White, and the marvelous Hannah Teter, there is a lot to watch and get excited about, and I hope the sport will benefit from this rush. That’s of course despite the fact I am grounded for the time being, at the very least until the end of the season. Continue reading

Why is Exercise So Important in Weight Management?

I was just talking with a friend of mine who is trying to lose weight and doesn’t have the time to work out. She has family, cleans up, feeds kids, drives them around, and has what we call a full-time career on top of that. Not an easy life. Of course, with all that stress and the temptation that comes with feeding teenagers and with power lunches, she is not losing an ounce. Continue reading

Snowboarding (II)

It seems just fair that after stopping this blog with a post on snowboarding, I’d start it again a year later with another one on the same topic. This time, though, the reason is less fortunate: I was snowboarding in gorgeous Breckenridge when a silly fall caused a shoulder separation. I’ve been not only kicked off the mountain for the rest of my time there, I haven’t been able to move much except to the grocery store to buy calorie bombs. Continue reading