Archives
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A Use for Octal
I've been programming in C since 1985 and C++ since 1991, but I've never found a use for octal representation until now, aside from the permissions argument for chmod. I've done a lot of bit twiddling: hex has been indispensable and I've often wished for a built-in notation for binary constants (WinDbg uses
0yto denote binary literals and0nto denote decimal literals (when the radix is not ten)). Octal, however, has always seemed as vestigial as a human appendix. -
Live Aid
I just came across www.liveaiddvd.net, the newly released DVD of the famous Live Aid concert. In 1985, there was a huge famine in Africa. Millions were dying. Bob Geldof, the leader of the Irish punk band, the Boomtown Rats, somehow managed to put together a huge multi-artist concert that took place simultaneously in London and in Philadelphia. A billion and a half people watched it live. $140 million was raised.
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To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing
William Butler Yeats
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The Curse has been reversed
I was at the Seattle Opera on Wednesday evening, to see Rigoletto. It's the tale of a hunchbacked jester who is put under a curse for tormenting an old man.
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URL Canonicalization
I'm pulling this post for now until I get a chance to rework it, after I got some feedback about the accuracy of what I said.
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Back at Microsoft: GeorgeRe -> a-GeorgR
Two weeks ago, I went back to Microsoft. I'm now a contractor in Windows Emerging Markets, working on a research project for an architect. What we're doing is quite interesting and I hope to be able to talk about it someday.
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IIS and Skype
I couldn't browse to the default website running on an XP SP2 machine earlier today, which was odd, since it worked yesterday, and I hadn't done anything since but reboot. Event Viewer said that IIS couldn't bind instance 1. w3svc/1 was configured to run on port 80. I thought at first that it might be something to do with the new firewall in XP SP2 blocking IIS, but that seemed odd and besides I couldn't find any mention of IIS in the firewall UI.
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Presentation Tips
I've presented technical talks at a few conferences. I wasn't bad, but I wasn't all that great either.
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KeePass: a Password Manager
The Code Project is a very useful site with C++, C#, and .NET tools, samples, and articles. I subscribe to their weekly newsletter, which summarizes all the new articles and tools that have been posted in the last week. About three months ago, the newsletter turned me on to a utility that has quickly become indispensible: KeePass, a Password Safe (or Manager).
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Schmies Vocabulary Test
I just found the Schmies Vocabulary Test. I scored a respectable 178 out of 200. As a teenager, I read much of Chambers Dictionary, which has left me with a large vocabulary.
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Voter Registration
Two days ago, I helped Washington Citizen Action (WCA) register some voters in the International District of Seattle. I'm somewhat shy, but having a clipboard and a purpose in hand helped me overcome my unease about soliciting strangers in the street. In a little over an hour, I successfully registered 3.5 voters, which my trainer considered better than average for a first-time registrar.
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Sensitive Reptilian Brain
In Cheney Speaks to the Reptilian Brain, Thom Hartmann makes an interesting point about Dick Cheney's ridiculing of John Kerry. Cheney deliberately takes Kerry's remarks about the need for sensitivity in the War on Terror out of context, and subjects them to ridicule with a subtext of fear. Hartmann says this is extremely hard to counter because Cheney's assertions appeal on three levels: to the reptilian brain (survival), to the limbic system (the heart and gut instincts), and to the neocortex (abstract thought).
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We Own What You Think
In the Salon article, We Own What You Think, Jeff Nachtigal describes the case of Evan Brown, a Texas programmer who has been fighting his former employer for seven years over the ownership of an idea that Brown came up with on his own time.
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Welcome to my new blog
Welcome to my new blog. I had another blog at EraBlog, but it sank into disuse several months ago.