The Good Will Hunting 'NSA scene' (causality)

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

Submitted by alvin on May 2, 2013 - 12:33am

More snow - May 1, 2013

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

By Alvin Alexander on 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

Submitted by alvin on May 1, 2013 - 12:31pm

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

Submitted by alvin on April 30, 2013 - 1:11pm

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.

Submitted by alvin on April 29, 2013 - 1:34pm

Empire Strikes Back - Yoda behind the scenes

A behind the scenes photo of Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, from this link of 66 behind the scenes photos.

By Alvin Alexander on April 28, 2013

Time, time, time, see what's become of me

Time, time, time,
see what's become of me.
While I looked around,
for my possibilities,
I was so hard to please.

Submitted by alvin on April 28, 2013 - 1:18am

2013, the year that quality forgot

I truly believe (or at least hope) that 2013 will be seen as the year that software companies forgot about quality. Here are just a few examples I noticed last night and this morning:

Twitter: Today I was notified that people “favorited” some of my posts. Cool. Oh, wait, they were favorited eight days ago, but just showed up today.

By Alvin Alexander on April 27, 2013

A Scala XML EntityRef example (unicode character)

This page shows a good Scala XML EntityRef example:

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:

By Alvin Alexander on April 27, 2013

Key and Peele East/West College Bowl, list of names

I don't watch much television, but some friends keep sending me URLs to Key and Peele videos, including the recent East/West College Bowl skit.

As we sent emails back and forth, laughing about the names they came up with and which one we'd want to be, I decided to jot down the names they used in the video, and without any further ado, here's a list of the names.

By Alvin Alexander on May 17, 2013
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