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Ego talking

My ego talking: Some times I wish people could see how much work goes into making something seem simple or easy.

Carlos Marmol - Execute one pitch at a time

“I think the biggest thing for Carlos is his concentration of executing a pitch,” Cubs pitching coach Chris Bosio said before Sunday’s series finale at Wrigley Field. “I think when Carlos gets in trouble -- along with the rest of the guys -- is when they get going too fast. And (Saturday) was a classic case of that. You’ve got to slow down and visualize the pitch and execute the pitch. He is totally capable of doing that.”

From http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-chicago-cubs-carl...

May the Fourth Be With You (2013)

"(George) Lucas said that the real secret to overcoming those long odds was a combination of a fondness for building things, an obsession for not letting others get in the way of his goals, and an unwillingness to care what the rest of the world thinks.”

From this CNet article.

We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. - Carlos Castaneda

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”

~ Carlos Castaneda

Scala - Thinking of functions as transformers

When you write Scala code like this:

val x = List.range(1, 10)
val evens = x.filter((i: Int) => i % 2 == 0)

the following portion of the code is a function literal (also known as an anonymous function):

(i: Int) => i % 2 == 0

When reading this code, it helps to think of this symbol:

How to run a Unix shell script from the Mac Finder

If you ever want to create a Unix shell script that you can give to someone else so they can double-click it and run it through the Mac OS X Finder, all you have to do is (a) name the file with the ".command" extension and (b) make it executable. So, just name your Mac/Unix script like this:

ShowProcesses.command

Then make it executable, like this:

chmod +x ShowProcesses.command

You can also leave out the usual #!/bin/sh part on the first line.

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement.

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”

~ Winston Churchill

Create like a God, Command like a king, Work like a slave (quote)

Create like a god.
Command like a king.
Work like a slave.

~ Constantine Brancusi

Bleeding Cubbie Blue

Woo hoo hoo,
eighteen hours with nothing to do,
I’m watching WGN,
and bleedin’ Cubbie Blue.

The Mediator Design Pattern in Java

Summary: The Mediator Design Pattern is demonstrated in a Java example (a Java Mediator Pattern example).

Law of Demeter - Java examples

Summary: The Law of Demeter is discussed using Java source code examples.

Whenever you talk to a good, experienced programmer, they will tell you that "loosely coupled" classes are very important to good software design.

The Law of Demeter for functions (or methods, in Java) attempts to minimize coupling between classes in any program. In short, the intent of this "law" is to prevent you from reaching into an object to gain access to a third object's methods. The Law of Demeter is often described this way:

The Good Will Hunting 'NSA scene' (causality)

The string of causality they put together in this “NSA scene” in Good Will Hunting is brilliant:

More snow - May 1, 2013

Woo-hoo, we're getting more snow here today in the Boulder, Colorado area. (May 1, 2013)

Jim Kent - Ice packs on the wrist to keep the human genome free

I’ve been working 80 hour weeks lately, and have had to start putting ice packs on my wrists lately so I can keep working. (Presumably a carpal tunnel issue.) This reminded me of this story from 2002, where Jim Kent put ice packs on his wrists to keep the human genome free (in the public domain): http://www.oreillynet.com/network/2002/04/05/kent.html

We die, and we do not die. This is the right understanding. - Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki

“We die, and we do not die. This is the right understanding.”

~ Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki

Brother Where You Bound, by Supertramp - metallic cassette tape

Crazy late night memory: I’m listening to the “Brother Where You Bound” CD by Supertramp, and I remember listening to the cassette tape version of this while throwing newspapers in the wee hours of the morning in Texas, occasionally seeing armadillos and other crazy creatures. The cassette tape was one of the first to be made from a certain type of metal (I can’t remember the type), and the sound quality was incredibly crisp.

import scala.xml._
val xml = <body>Hello{EntityRef("#8198")}World</body>

That page states that 8198 is the unicode value for a tiny space character.

That code isn't too helpful unless you can see it in the REPL, so here it is:

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