One of my pet peeves is the ridiculously short lifetimes of digital media. I remember 9 track mainframe tapes and 5.5 inch floppies: technologies that thrived in an ancient bygone epoch known as the Eighties. Good luck trying to read 9 track tapes or 5.5 inch floppies today! You will have better luck with older … Continue reading Soon we will all be Software Archeologists
Category: Software
The Return of APL Fingers
APL typewriter ball (1970s) I am programming in APL again after a six-year hiatus. My APL fingers are rusty but it's amazing how deep muscle memory goes. I still know where all the beautiful APL glyphs' hide on standard keyboards. I've programmed in almost a dozen programming languages but I maintain warm feelings for APL … Continue reading The Return of APL Fingers
Resume blues partly alleviated by LaTeX
Once again your fearless correspondent is seeking new consulting opportunities. One of the major drawbacks of consulting is the constant need to keep marketing yourself! When it comes to self promotion that old standby, the resume, is still one of your most effective tools. When communicating with potential clients their first question is; “Can you … Continue reading Resume blues partly alleviated by LaTeX
My Tag Wordle
I plugged my Delicious ID into Wordle and it made this picture of my popular tags. My current tag Wordle It’s a pretty accurate summary of what I’ve been thinking about for the last few months. We're all more predictable than we think!
The Real Problem with Enterprise Software
Only the gifted analytic minds of IT management and know it all programmers have the intelligence work ethic and superb taste required to select enterprise software. Speaking as an ITite, (one who works in IT), I can report that we are so gifted, so far-seeing, so utterly and totally awesome in our views that only … Continue reading The Real Problem with Enterprise Software
A C# .Net Class for calling J
One of my favorite programming tools is J. In skilled hands J is a spear in a world of bent spoons. In my day job I rarely encounter programming problems that cannot be brutally dispatched with a few dozen lines of J. Most accomplished J programmers laud the elegance and power of the language and … Continue reading A C# .Net Class for calling J
WordPress to LaTeX Hack
This post is obsolete. Look here for details on converting WordPress to LaTeX. I have stumbled on another coding nuisance. Last weekend I spent a few moments exploring ways to export and print this blog in a nice typeset fashion. I first tried Blurb's book making software. It has a nice feature that automatically downloads blog … Continue reading WordPress to LaTeX Hack
SmugMug Duplicate Image Hunting
One of the many things the developers of Thumbsplus got right was a proper normalized database schema. When I first inspected the layout of a Thumbsplus database I knew I was in good hands. In Thumbsplus image files get unique keys and image galleries are simply lists of image keys. Images can appear in any number … Continue reading SmugMug Duplicate Image Hunting
Command Line C# SmugMug API Metadata Download
I have a skeleton in my photographic closet! I enjoy hacking pictures as much as I enjoy shooting them. Before digital photography I got my jollies the old fashioned way with chemicals: dark room chemicals. I still get all emotional when I remember the scent of a fixer. Ahhh --- those were the days. Now, … Continue reading Command Line C# SmugMug API Metadata Download
Why Code when you can Steal
I am learning C#. Two years ago I swore a blood oath not to learn anymore programming languages. It’s been obvious for decades that you seldom find any new and important ideas in programming languages. What you typically find are old ideas renamed and wrapped in a new syntax. Virtually all key concepts in programming are over … Continue reading Why Code when you can Steal
Analyze the Data not the Drivel 