Miscellaneous Childish Geekery
I nearly made a mathematician's head explode yesterday. We were idly talking about computing the digits of pi*, and different algorithms for doing it, and so on, and the mathematician mentioned that computing pi to silly numbers of decimal places was often used as a way of quality-checking computer hardware. To tease him I asked, "But what happens if pi changes?". The poor chap thought I was serious and was literally unable to speak for a minute or two.
I've also been having conversations with people about naming children. (Apropos of the impending new arrival. About half way through and all well so far, for those who are interested.)
Surnames are a bugger. A hippyish friend suggested we avoid the whole choose-a-surname/double-barrelling question by changing all of our surnames to Daffodil.
I've also had many conversations with friends online and IRL about giving children a temporary first name, so that they can change it to one they like when they're old enough to make a responsible decision for themselves.** I'm pretty sure we won't be doing that, but it's a fun idea anyway. The basic options are calling them "Firstborn" (as in The Beiderbecke Affair) or "Insert Name Here" or "Placeholder To-Be-Advised" or "" and so on. Then you get geekier notions like "// TODO" and "**FIXME". Of course, the really geeky approach is to leave the decision until runtime using some form of dynamic binding, but even if I could think of a way of implementing that with the official Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths, it's a shade too geeky even for me.
I don't want to give out the child's name online even once it's decided, so I think I might pick the best of both ideas and dub the nipper **FIXME Daffodil online until they're old enough to protest.
* We know how to have a good time at my workplace, I can tell you.
** Probably about 50, I would guess.
I've also been having conversations with people about naming children. (Apropos of the impending new arrival. About half way through and all well so far, for those who are interested.)
Surnames are a bugger. A hippyish friend suggested we avoid the whole choose-a-surname/double-barrelling question by changing all of our surnames to Daffodil.
I've also had many conversations with friends online and IRL about giving children a temporary first name, so that they can change it to one they like when they're old enough to make a responsible decision for themselves.** I'm pretty sure we won't be doing that, but it's a fun idea anyway. The basic options are calling them "Firstborn" (as in The Beiderbecke Affair) or "Insert Name Here" or "Placeholder To-Be-Advised" or "" and so on. Then you get geekier notions like "// TODO" and "**FIXME". Of course, the really geeky approach is to leave the decision until runtime using some form of dynamic binding, but even if I could think of a way of implementing that with the official Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths, it's a shade too geeky even for me.
I don't want to give out the child's name online even once it's decided, so I think I might pick the best of both ideas and dub the nipper **FIXME Daffodil online until they're old enough to protest.
* We know how to have a good time at my workplace, I can tell you.
** Probably about 50, I would guess.