I just republished an article I'd worked on for Red Hat, called "Smart Grids." It's got twelve parts already, with two more not actually finalized; I'd been pulled off of the smart grids article and never quite got back around to it. I'd still like to, though. It's a good walkthrough of an "Internet of… Continue reading Smart Grids series reposted
Category: reposts
Repost: Welcome to the New Inquisition.
CNN posted Stopping ISIS today, containing some horrifying imagery: basically, ISIS filmed a man being forcibly converted from Christianity to Islam, and then beheaded him. I suppose that somewhere the god of irony is weeping tears of stone. God knows I'm weeping real tears. Is this really what we've come to? A religious movement, ostensibly… Continue reading Repost: Welcome to the New Inquisition.
Repost: Avail, a language for ‘articulate programming,’ released
The Avail team has announced the first release of Avail, an "articulate programming language," which attempts to offer a somewhat natural expression form for solving programming problems. While other languages, such as Perl, have tried to do some of the same things in providing an English-like parsing structure, Avail uses a very human-readable syntax to… Continue reading Repost: Avail, a language for ‘articulate programming,’ released
CSS and Aside Text
I am having some difficulty with CSS and I'm not entirely sure how to fix it. So I'm putting this out there in the hopes that someone with CSS expertise can look and say something simple, like, "Hey, dummy, why not..." The problem is "aside text." This is an example of "aside text." Aside text… Continue reading CSS and Aside Text
Repost: Music that moves you?
I hate to admit it, but one of my favorite songs right now is Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," which I first heard on American Idol. What... a... song! The lyrics are freakin' STUNNING. Amazing piece of work. The relationship between sex and God explored artistically and respectfully. Other music that stands out among the madding crowd,… Continue reading Repost: Music that moves you?
Repost: Godwin’s Law, expanded
Recently, I had a discussion with someone in which I took a position that is not representative of my actual thought on a matter, against a rather ... energetic opposing point. In it, Godwin's Law was in full evidence, along with some corollaries; partly inspired by the corollaries, I'd like to propose an addendum to… Continue reading Repost: Godwin’s Law, expanded
Repost: Graduation rates in college football
Wouldn't it be awesome if the contracts for college football coaches paid out at the graduation rate experienced by their players? It'd have to be tweaked, of course; it'd be unfair to punish an incoming coach for the poor graduation rates of his predecessor. But imagine: the first year, you might pay the coach 100%… Continue reading Repost: Graduation rates in college football
Repost: A brilliant new film idea
Inspired by the apparent congruence between the book World War Z and the film World War Z, I was struck by an imaginary conversation that led me to a very marketable idea. Here's the conversation: "Let's call it 'Tom Sawyer.'" "But the main character's named Philip MacGillicuddy, and it's about an invasion of flying robotic… Continue reading Repost: A brilliant new film idea
Repost: Rocket Java: What is Map/Reduce?
Map/Reduce is a strategy by which one uses a divide-and-conquer approach to handling data. The division is normally provided along natural lines, and it can provide some really impressive performance gains. The way it does this is by limiting the selection of data for which processing applies. Here's a good way to think of it,… Continue reading Repost: Rocket Java: What is Map/Reduce?
Repost: Geddy Lee’s weird bass is a Precision!
Today I read an article from Guitar Player, from 1980, where Geddy Lee solved a question I've had for years, about what kind of bass was featured in a number of pictures. See the bass immediately to his right? It looks like a teardrop. I've seen color pictures; it's sort of a light blue gradient;… Continue reading Repost: Geddy Lee’s weird bass is a Precision!
