The Challenge

Goal 1: 3 hours / week on a personal project: Should grad school count? I'm taking two online courses this summer. They're intellectually stimulating. Just time consuming.

Goal 2: 3 essays / month: Classification and a two-parter: Programming Epochs Part I and Part II. I've got a couple coming down the pipe: a computer-sciency ( Read more... )

anailia's family asked me to speak at her Uncle George's memorial service today. This is what I said:

The first time I met George was about six years ago at a birthday party for the woman who would become my wife: his niece. She and I had only been dating for about two or three months, but she had already told me a lot about "Uncle George ( Read more... )

To review, I identified four epochs that computer programming has gone through since its inception: The Imperative, the Structured, the Object Oriented, and the Dynamic. The Imperative was characterized by being very close to the machine code itself, with very little abstraction or imposed structure. The Structured epoch added some basic ( Read more... )

The world didn't exist before January 1, 1970. Don't believe me? Ask your computer. That completely arbitrary date, often referred to in computing circles simply as "The Epoch", is the date from which nearly all computer systems on earth represent current time. Interestingly, this results in a Y2K-like problem called the Year 2038, but that's a ( Read more... )

I have a love/hate relationship with trying to categorize things around me. For one thing, I crave things around me to be organized. They're simply easier to find, process, and mentally manage that way. However, whenever I make the effort to classify and organize any set of things, I always run up against my mathematician/programmer need to be ( Read more... )

The Challenge

Goal 1: 3 hours / week on a personal project: I didn't keep such good track. Also, I'm at work, so don't have my notebook anyway. However, I felt like I slacked off. Except for building a new shed door. Which still doesn't have a latch on it. Also, I was reminded how little I like working with my hands. But, like laundry, dishes, and ( Read more... )

This: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282190930932412.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTopRead more... )

anailia recently started her new job (Congratulations!), and the inevitable tide of New Employee Benefits Forms have washed over and nearly drowned us. HMO or PPO? High Deductible with Low Premiums, or the other way around? Just how many deductions should we have? Should we get supplemental life insurance through the employer, or through USAA? Ad ( Read more... )

I basically had this conversation in my head on my way home from work today.

Apologies in advance to the far-more-brilliant-than-me Ryan North and his fantastic Dinosaur Comics series. The webcomic art and concept are entirely his. I just borrowed it for my words:


( Read more... )

The other day on Twitter I innocently asked:

Ideally, how often should the "most skilled" player win at a game?

I was inspired by this post on the BoardGameGeek forums, which posed the question in terms of a four player board game and asked for answers in terms of actual percentages. I thought it was a neat, almost philosophical question about ( Read more... )