Archive: November 25, 2013

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bitcoin

Monday,  11/25/13  05:20 PM

Do you understand bitcoin?  If not, or even if you do and just want to learn more, check out Wired's Bitcoin Survival Guide.  I've gone from thinking it's a weird fad to thinking there's something to it to thinking it seems to be getting traction.  It reminds me of much of the backstory for Neal Stephenson's classic Cryptonomicon, the desire for a currency which doesn't need a central administration to regulate it or establish its value.  Long term this would be pretty compelling; short term, we'll see if the [in]stability of bitcoin holds up.

At right, a bitcoin "mine" in action, from the collective hallucination of currency, which is a nice reference.

For more, you might enjoy Bitcoins Bitcoins Everywhere, from Brad Feld, which has a bunch more links...

 

 

Monday,  11/25/13  05:30 PM

A quiet day of coding, in which I discovered a brand new way to develop C++ for Linux, Eclipse CDT, and used it to create a whole bunch of new bugs :)

I love this: Russell Beattie on writing and blogging: that weird background process.  "Since I stopped posting to Twitter and Facebook and start blogging long-form again, I've been 'blogging in the back of my mind' more and more. Do you do that?"  Yes, yes I do! 

Scott "Dilbert" Adams wonders What if stupid people organized?  (I'll avoid the snarky comment that maybe they already have :)  Personally I would rather see the pendulum swing the other way... 

Today SpaceX almost launched an SES satellite into geostationary orbit... this is 22,000 miles from Earth, nearly ten times as far as the 250 miles to the International Space Station which has now been reached by SpaceX rockets several times.  Punch line: delayed to Thursday.  But check out this comparison of SpaceX's mission control to NASA's... a few more laptops and a few less binders :) 

From kottke: some intellectual jokes.  Here's my favorite: "What does the "B" in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for?  Benoit B. Mandelbrot."  Reminds me of the excellent self-referential: TLA. 

Way useful: how to force Facebook to grab the best image from your page.  The punchline: <meta rel="image_src" href="posts/...">.  You will also want this link to Facebook's "debugger", which shows you exactly what they see. 


Ohio State University's marching band is pretty awesome; check out this tribute they did on the anniversary of the Gettysburg address.  Wow.  For more OSU coolness, here's a classic tribute to classic video games

The average NFL game has 100 commercials and 11 minutes of action.  After watching this weekend, I can believe it.  A strong argument for Tivo :)  

But did you catch last night's Denver / Patriots game?  Wow.  Those were some amazing 11 minutes!

An interesting debate, of interest to me: Android vs IOS development.  Aka, for which platform should you develop first?  IOS in the US, Android elsewhere, apparently, but there are also some interesting technical trade-offs, including Xcode vs Eclipse, and Cocoa vs Java.  That there isn't a clear answer makes the whole thing more interesting. 

And finally, so I can find it later: Basic Javascript for the impatient programmer.  A beautiful overview by Axel Rauschmayer, who often posts interesting "expert" articles about Javascript as well...

 

 
 

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