For the last few weeks, my normal hobbies have been preempted by my obsessive refactoring of an old SmugMug keyword setting program. Many years ago I wrote a small application that helped me maintain meaningful SmugMug keywords. I used this application for years until inevitable software changes broke it. Replacing it with something better has … Continue reading Setting SmugMug Print Size Keywords with Jupyter and Python
Category: Programming
Downloading SmugMug Captions with Python and Jupyter
This blog post started out as an experimental rendering of a Jupyter notebook. I wanted to see how difficult it would be to convert a notebook to a WordPress.com blog post. Even though Jupyter exports notebooks in HTML and Markdown they do not display well "out of the box." No doubt one could craft CSS … Continue reading Downloading SmugMug Captions with Python and Jupyter
SWAG a J/EXCEL/GIT Personal Cash Flow Forecasting Mob
While browsing in a favorite bookstore with my son, I spotted a display of horoscope themed Christmas tree ornaments. The ornaments were glass balls embossed with golden birth signs like Aquarius, Gemini, Cancer, et cetera, and a descriptive phrase that “summed up” the character of people born under a sign. Below my birth sign golden … Continue reading SWAG a J/EXCEL/GIT Personal Cash Flow Forecasting Mob
Turning JOD Dump Script Tricks
Have you ever wondered how extremely prolific bloggers do it? How is it possible to crank out thousands of blog posts per year without creating a giant stinking pile of mediocre doo doo? Like most deep mysteries it's not deep and there are no mysteries. The spewers, people who post like teenage girls tweet, use … Continue reading Turning JOD Dump Script Tricks
Cutting the Stinking Tauntaun and other Adventures in Software Archeology
The other day a software project that I had spent a year on was “put on the shelf.” A year of effort was unceremoniously flushed down the software sewer. A number of colleagues asked me, “How do you feel about this?” Would you believe relieved? This is not false bravado or stupid sunny optimism. I … Continue reading Cutting the Stinking Tauntaun and other Adventures in Software Archeology
JOD Update: Version 0.9.97*
In the last year much has changed in the J world. There are new official J 8.0x builds for all supported platforms.The QT based IDE JDE has matured and is in widespread use.The column oriented J database JD is drawing new users to J and enticing J veterans to reconsider how we use databases.There is … Continue reading JOD Update: Version 0.9.97*
Parsing the Bitcoin Genesis Block with J
The genesis block is the first block on the Bitcoin blockchain. Satoshi Nakamoto, the mysterious entity that created Bitcoin, mined the genesis block on January 3, 2009. It's been five years since the genesis block's birth and Satoshi is still unknown, Bitcoin is bigger than ever, and the blockchain is longer than 300,000 blocks and growing. One … Continue reading Parsing the Bitcoin Genesis Block with J
JOD Update: J 8.02 QT/JHS/64 bit Systems
I have pushed out a JOD update that makes it possible to run the addon on J 8.02 systems. In the last eight months a QT based J IDE has been developed that runs on Linux, Windows and Mac platforms. To maintain JOD’s compatibility across all versions of J from 6.02 on I had to … Continue reading JOD Update: J 8.02 QT/JHS/64 bit Systems
Fun with Farsi Text in LaTeX
Analyze the Data not the Drivel is a mouthful. This blog needs a short symbolic name. For sometime I have used ADND myself but that's to close to ADHD for comfort. However if we treat ADND as a simple algebraic expression it becomes: $latex ad^2n $ This is better but still not cool! If we … Continue reading Fun with Farsi Text in LaTeX
APL Software Archaeology .dbi Edition
Have yourself a merry little APL Christmas. I joke that my job title should be software archaeologist because I often find myself resurrecting, not refactoring, code that dates to primitive and primeval eras. The language I’m typically hired to resurrect is APL. APL, the language with funny symbols, is a software vampire. People keep paying … Continue reading APL Software Archaeology .dbi Edition