I’m typing this on my Slate 7. At the end of a week long trip to Hawaii in January, I dropped it on the plane while it was plugged in. That seemed to be the start of the problem, because after that i t went completely black the next day and refused to acknowledge it was being charged. Continue reading
Worst 3D Printer – back at it
I finally got frustrated with a blocking build issue I have no control over today, so I switched over and dusted off the Worst 3D Printer code.
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Two conferences in three weeks.
I thought I should get back to it with a quick post. In the last month I attended two conferences, one was OpenStack Summit in Vancouver BC, and the other was an internal conference for my company in Phoenix. Both were good experiences, and I got to see how my company is throwing boatloads of money at the cloud. Made my decision to stay with cloud feel better, as my transition to seeing a teleworker had me nervous about how long it would last.
Link: 40 CS concepts
Yeah, I can’t take credit for this post, as it came through the O’Reilly newsletter, but I kind of enjoyed reading it, so I’m relinking it. http://carlcheo.com/compsci?imm_mid=0d1415&cmp=em-prog-na-na-newsltr_20150502
Not a perfect article, and could have used a little editing, but enjoyable enough. I may use it as inspiration for writing my own items where I thought that article was a little weak in explaining (like the DDOS explanation).
Busy month of January
Just a quick post to acknowledge how busy January was. My In-Laws visited around New Years and we all drove to the Tri-Cities to see my nephew’s blessing. Then we all got sick (thanks Alex), then flew to Hawaii for a week. With all that going on, I didn’t have much time for side projects, which is unfortunate, because I’ve got a few things to polish and publish.
Worst 3D Printer – format selection and using existing tools
Hmm, that title got a little long…
When I decided to take the challenge to program the worst, yet functional, 3D printer, I wanted it to be as simple as possible. With 4 kids and a full time job, I just don’t have much time for side projects. So wherever I could cut a corner or use an existing tool, I looked for it.
Worst 3D Printer Ever – Prologue
This all started as a joke. One day I was chatting with a coworker who owns a 3D extrusion printer (a Makerbot I think). I mentioned what a bad idea it would be to use a stack of paper and just cut out each layer to make a 3D “print”. We laughed about it, but then I got to thinking.
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Buzzword Pet Peeve – just like Lego
One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone tries to explain their modular or componentized system as being “just like Legos”. That is almost never true.
One of the first misuses of the term was back when I first started working on web services hosted in Tomcat. It seemed like anyone who made a tiered system or one that talked through SOAP liked to describe it as being ” just like Legos”.
Often it is just a lazy way to report on a new technology. Like this article, which prompted this rant.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/03/google-x-giant-modular-displays/?ncid=rss_truncated
Now while I’m a huge AFOL, I’m not so picky that not using the official term “Lego brick” instead of the common “Legos” bothers me. So what is the problem?
First off, Lego bricks, with a few Mindstorms exceptions, don’t care what they are connected to. If the stud fits in the hole, that’s all it needs. Contrast that to a web service, where the format and intent of the connection is critical to the function. Or contrast to the displays mentioned in the article. While they don’t give details, even in the most modular of display applications, you need to know which display is connected to which port and what orientation so you can render an intelligent image onto the combined layout. Lego bricks don’t care what the brick on the other side of it is – no information passes through them.
With a Lego model, studs are studs. You can connect them together however fits, and whether it is good is evaluated externally by the viewer (art is in the eye of the beholder). A web service can’t have its display layer and its database layer swapped and still function.
Yes, I’m probably over analyzing it. But it dies bother me and I wish people would just put a little more effort into accurately describing systems.
Computers sing to me. INSOC
I got my copy of the new Information Society album _hello world today. So good once again. Synthesizer , their last album, is my favorite album of the last decade.
I really enjoy synthpop and Insoc music when I’m coding. I think of it as the computer singing back to me as I work.
I share a cube space with a very talented engineer, and his work music of choice is classical. While I like classical music, I find it relaxes me too much and I tend to drift off.
Word pressing on a tablet.
I’m typing this on my HP Slate 7 tablet in the WordPress app. This is a small 7 inch Android tablet. The app works pretty well to post short simple posts, but the editor does tend to goof up. I’m finding that if I go back up a few lines and start typing that the rendering of the following existing lines gets jumbled into what I just typed. But if I rotate the tablet it defenders correctly.
I suppose I should get out my Bluetooth keyboard and try typing on it, but I’m happy to use my thumbs for now.
I definitely need to use this app more.