((λ λ λ))

2011-08-31 Notes

Amusing that these are the same length with or without the variable:

>>> all(map(Number.__instancecheck__, [1,2,3]))
True
>>> all(isinstance(x, Number) for x in [1,2,3])
True

Sometimes I feel like I’m doing it wrong: that everyone else has a plan and I’m just coasting along. Then I remember that just like everyone else, I perform activities, accomplish tasks, feel complete, and feel incomplete.

Notes

Unintentional banker’s rounding

From this question on Stack Overflow:

>> printf('%.2f', 2048.615)
2048.61
>> printf('%.2f', 2047.615)
2047.62

2011-08-05 Notes

When you perfect the mental exercise of forming abstractions, a once automatic mechanism for coping with the vast world vanishes; every detail of every situation must be consciously addressed and filed.

2011-06-23 Notes

Create 1000 directories each with 1000 empty files

Then compress them with various methods:

zip: 120 MB
tar.bz2: 2 MB
7z: 400 KB
git bundle: 5 KB

It’s impressive that the results of this pathological case span four orders of magnitude.

2011-06-21 Notes

Firefox ships this crud.

2011-06-08 Notes

Don’t Repeat Yourself

2011-04-25 Notes

Git tip: Maintaining an SSH connection

Add

ControlPath /tmp/%h-%p-%r.sock
ControlMaster auto

to your .ssh/config (either on top or in the host entry), then use

ssh -N github

(or whichever the remote is) to open the SSH window and wait. If you’re pushing and fetching lots of little things — deleting several branches, say — then they’ll all run through the same connection, saving on overhead.

2011-04-18 0 notes

Experimenting with POV-Ray’s shading parameters (again).

Source: jleedev.deviantart.com

2011-04-11 0 notes

Tom Knight and the Lisp Machine

A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.

Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: “You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong.”

Knight turned the machine off and on.

The machine worked.

Source: catb.org