Archive: November 13, 2009

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still desk checking

Friday,  11/13/09  05:31 PM

A little while ago I posted an ode to Desk Checking.  It's one of those articles I used to write more often; a little think piece about programming.  It gets linked every so often but it isn't a major traffic driver.  So yesterday I received the most excellent email ever from a guy named Adam: Hello there, I'm currently a sophomore in a computer science course and I am doing some last minute studying before a test I have tomorrow morning.  One thing my teacher told the class to review before the test was desk checking.  So, I Googled desk checking to find a more detailed description of exactly what it was.  I had an idea of what it was and it turned out I was correct. I came across your article: http://www.w-uh.com/posts/080401-desk_checking.html.  I read through it and was amazed by the story you told about the batch deck of cards.  I can only say that I'm glad I don't have to go through that kind of hassle.  Anyways, I was just letting you know that I found your rant to be very informative, funny and humbling.  I'm positive that on my test tomorrow I will be able to thoroughly explain what desk checking is and that from now on, because of your article, I will desk check my work before compiling.   Thanks I predict Adam will go far :)

 

Friday,  11/13/09  05:43 PM

Wrapping up a busy week, getting ready for a not-busy-at-all weekend!  Just talked to a friend and explained it as "football watching season", which also means "quiet programming while watching" season, thanks to Tivo and Slingbox.  I need some downtime.  Too bad USC lost to Oregon, otherwise tomorrow's Stanford game would be a lot bigger. This afternoon I rode Rockstore for the first time in a while, and it was good.  After all this time, still one of the best climbs around, and it is just ten miles from my house.  For the record, 8:00+2:00+7:00+2:00=19:00.  The sections and the total time.  Not my best, but not my worst, either... The Palm Pixi is out, and Engadget posted a rather complimentary review.  Not groundbreaking like the Pre, but nicely evolutionary.  I would observe that if you already have a Pre, you wouldn't consider a Pixi; it is considerably less capability in a slightly smaller device.  Different from when I already had a Treo, and switched to a Centro; it was the same capability in a considerably smaller device.  And isn't it interesting that the Pixi strikes everyone as feminine.  Along with the Pixi we get WebOS 1.3.1; I installed it immediately of course, and it seems not-broken.  Web browsing seems snappier, but otherwise I have yet to notice any difference.  Nice that Palm is turning WebOS so fast.  Linked just for the title: Grand Theft Koyaanisqatsi.  Scenes from the game, although as Kottke notes not set to Philip Glass, although they should be :)  Someone please remedy this immediately!  (Someone will, I'm sure :)  The game technology is quite impressive, particularly the shadows and clouds.  The water is pretty excellent, too.  One suggestion for the game designers: wind; trees and plants move, too.  Once again we must note; pre-roll video ads strongly violate the reverse pyramid dictum.  I'm going to go out on a limb to speculate that inline ads will end up predominating video for this reason. Bram Cohen (author of Bittorrent and Python aficionado) comments on Google's Go programming language.  Really interesting; I've ignored Go so far, but possibly I shouldn't.  Google has the scale to make something like this happen.  ZooBorns of the day: Otter pups!  WOW, cuteness exemplified...

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