((λ λ λ))

List of dairy-alternative products whose names are not puns

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:00:06 -0600

Wanna see a leaky abstraction?

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 16:25:57 -0600

On MacBook running 10.7, set scrollbar visibility to “Automatically based on input device”. Hibernate the machine. When it comes back, the scrollbars will act as if you do not have a trackpad, until it’s fully restored and then the scrollbars disappear.

So I’m playing the Zeratul missions Wings of Liberty, and I’m imagining that the Protoss are talking...

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:24:25 -0600

So I’m playing the Zeratul missions Wings of Liberty, and I’m imagining that the Protoss are talking in iambic pentameter, since they use such poetic language and the meter is close enough. Now for the next few days, I’m going to read in Zeratul’s voice everything I see in iambic pentameter.

I’m imagining a world where if you wanted to go outside to stand for something, the police...

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 07:15:40 -0500

I’m imagining a world where if you wanted to go outside to stand for something, the police would provide a guard for you.

US Web Search activity for stackoverflow and git stash...

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 11:03:05 -0500

US Web Search activity for stackoverflow and git stash (r=0.9918)

Ruby: foo = 5 if false foo # => nil # Merely passing an assignment defines the variable, even if...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:03:05 -0500

Ruby:

foo = 5 if false
foo # => nil
# Merely passing an assignment defines the variable, even if it does not execute.

Python:

foo
if False: foo = 5
# The first expression raises UnboundLocalError

In this case, Python is more strict, since you don’t get implicit nil everywhere, but ruby is less surprising, since all execution paths declare the variable.

YouTube’s automatic captions are profound: Using the Amazon competing cloud to create virtually...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:01:59 -0500

YouTube’s automatic captions are profound:

Using the Amazon competing cloud to create virtually limitless cash.

Piece of spam today

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:00:43 -0500

(\__/)
(O.o )
(> < )

Captain America will help to improve your health!

Sir, that’s a bunny, not Captain America.

A partial list of Wikipedia articles named in iambic pentameter

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:00:06 -0500

Constructivist epistemology

Today we are going to talk about properties of things. So if A is a property and B is a thing, we...

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:00:05 -0500

Today we are going to talk about properties of things.

So if A is a property and B is a thing, we can talk about the A-ness of B.

Oh phooey, that sounds terrible, we better pick different letters.

OK, so let P be a property and Q be a thing…

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

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:00:06 -0500

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....

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 10:58:00 -0500

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.

Unintentional banker’s rounding

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 09:03:00 -0500

From this question on Stack Overflow:

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

When you perfect the mental exercise of forming abstractions, a once automatic mechanism for coping...

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:18:03 -0500

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.

Create 1000 directories each with 1000 empty files

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 16:08:00 -0500

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.

Firefox ships this crud.

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:51:14 -0500

Firefox ships this crud.

Don’t Repeat Yourself

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:43:00 -0500

Don’t Repeat Yourself

Git tip: Maintaining an SSH connection

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:00:06 -0500

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.

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

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:17:46 -0500

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

Tom Knight and the Lisp Machine

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:36:50 -0500

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.