Tag Archives: Tech

Correcting Text Messages

Posted on 2021-05-09 by jcs

A few years ago I used to joke that I was getting in touch with my inner teenager when I texted with SMS. These days, I text more often than I send email and Apple’s iMessage makes it easy to … Continue reading →

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Whence COVID-19

Posted on 2021-05-08 by jcs

Public health officials have seriously damaged their credibility with COVID-19 messaging. Many of the things they’ve told us have turned out not to be true. Some, such as their early advice on mask wearing, was a transparent lie that didn’t … Continue reading →

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Git With Solo Projects

Posted on 2021-05-06 by jcs

Over at Fosslife, V.M. Brasseur considers the question of why you should use Git, or some other version control system, for your solo projects. Brasseur was shocked when one of her coworkers expressed surprise that she used Git even for … Continue reading →

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And You Don’t Mess Around With Jim

Posted on 2021-04-29 by jcs

The late Jim Croce famously sang You don’t tug on Superman’s cape You don’t spit into the wind You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger And you don’t mess around with Jim Cloudflare has another item for … Continue reading →

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Reasons for Clojure

Posted on 2021-04-15 by jcs

Irreal regulars know that I’ve been exceedingly wishy-washy about learning Clojure. Every time I see a video from Zamansky or someone else using it, I get excited about learning and trying it out. Other times, I get hung up on … Continue reading →

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Industrial R&D Labs

Posted on 2021-03-18 by jcs

When you read “Industrial R&D Labs” in the title, what did you think of? Even in our field, there are plenty. There’s Xerox’s PARC, AT&T’s Bell Labs, and IBM’s Thomas J Watson Research Center to name just three of the … Continue reading →

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Google and the Petro Curse

Posted on 2021-03-11 by jcs

The Google graveyard of services is a familiar Internet trope that describes Google’s habit of sunsetting popular services. It’s infuriating. Seemingly everyone has a story of some app they depended on that Google killed. The smart money no longer adopts … Continue reading →

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The Most Vital Language

Posted on 2021-03-09 by jcs

Kontra has an interesting question: If aliens (which obviously would come from Mars aboard one of Musk’s spaceships) manage to completely disable one programming language to bring human civilization on earth to a screeching halt, which language would they choose? … Continue reading →

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Designing with Finite State Machines

Posted on 2021-02-22 by jcs

I’ve written before (see here and here for example) of my enthusiasm for using finite state machines (FSMs) in my design and coding. I had a C-based template that I used over and over. To implement a new state machine … Continue reading →

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Red Meat Friday: Word

Posted on 2021-02-19 by jcs

Microsoft Word: What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) typesetting software that is widely used for writing despite its lack of decent version control and text entry/editing functionality#vim #emacs #rmarkdown #pandoc — Martin Skarzynski (@marskar) February 18, 2021 And … Continue reading →

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