Charles Miller had an amusing blog entry about the hazards of computers. I am currently working with development of embedded systems software, so I spend a lot of my day plugging and unplugging PCI cards, comm ports, etc. My hands are covered with little scratches, cuts, and punctures.
Computer programming …
I've always been fascinated by helicopters. The way they float in the air, and the throbbing "chop-chop-chop" provide a Zen-like experience for me, where I can stop thinking and just experience the helicopter overhead.
Actually learning to fly a helicopter would be nice, but I'm not willing to devote the …
I am reading the Pragmatic Programmers' new "Starter Pack" books. Most of the content is nothing new to me, but I always enjoy reading good books about the basics.
I like seeing things put simply. The real world is rarely simple, and we forget how following a few easy-to-understand principles …
Joseph Pelrine notes that "as Alistair Cockburn rightly states, 'simplest' has no metric. It is not a quantifiable amount." While it is true that one cannot put a number on it, there is an obvious test: you have the simplest solution if nobody can think of anything simpler.
Of course …
Someone asked me "What's the big deal about .NET? Besides the fact that the Microsoft world is steering that way and so knowing it is probably a good career move. Is there a specific problem that it solves that I couldn't solve as easily with, say, Ruby or Perl?"
This …
I committed several developer sins today. (Actually, I only committed a couple today; the others were committed in the past but came to light today.)
First, I assumed that the bug was in the other guy's code. I was sure there could be nothing wrong in my simple straightforward object-oriented …
I earned the Microsoft Certified Solution Developer for .NET certification last year. My resumé is mired in C++ and CORBA, and I wanted something that would indicate to potential employers that I could do something else. I missed out on the Java bandwagon, and couldn't compete with the junior Java …
The most significant personal change I've gone through in the past few years is an increase in my assertiveness. I am a very different person from who I used to be, due to this change.
I am a stutterer. That, coupled with natural introversion, caused me to grow up avoiding …
When I was a kid, I really liked the "Making of Star Wars" and similar documentaries that gave behind-the-scenes looks at the production of movies. These days, the "Making of ..." pieces are really just ads for the movies, usually being released before the movie itself.
But we have DVD commentary …
I didn't like The Lord of the Rings when I read it as a teenager. I loved The Hobbit, but Rings just bored me. It had too much singing and story-telling, and was just too long. I lost interest before finishing the first volume, so the other two volumes were …