I enjoy Phil Plait’s writing style in this “Bad Astronomy” article, A 3 billion solar mass black hole rockets out of a galaxy at 8 million kilometers per hour. Yes, seriously. He clearly enjoys what he’s writing about.
Scala, Java, Unix, MacOS tutorials (page 168)
Bonnie Eisenman perfectly captures the target market for my upcoming book on Scala and Functional Programming. How big that market is ... I don’t know ... I’m just trying to write a good book to explain functional programming in Scala in simple terms, and this is who I’m writing it for.
There’s a guy on a local radio station (104.3 The Fan) named Darren McKee (who guys by the name “D-Mac”), and he constantly uses a phrase that drives me crazy:
“To be honest with you ...”
As I wrote in my book, A Survival Guide for New Consultants, you should never use that phrase.
Why? Because using it for some sentences implies that you aren’t being honest with every other sentence that comes out of your mouth.
I’m saddened by people who are so afraid of making a mistake that they come up with a million different reasons as excuses to justify why something can’t be done. They always say, “I would do XYZ, but ...”
All I can think to say to them is, “Quit thinking and just do it.” Or, as Cher said in Moonstruck, “Snap out of it!”
Really, what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen? You’re going to die? Well, I have news for you, no matter what you do, you’re going to die anyway. (I’ve gone unconscious seven times over the last couple of years, and believe me, at that point there’s nothing you can do about it.)
Without any introduction or discussion, here are the notes I made while learning how to get HTTPS working with Nginx. These are just for me, but if something helps you, that’s cool. I refer back to these notes every time I set up a new Linux server.
Wesley Reisz shared this nice image titled, “The Rationale for Optional” (in Java). Optional in Java is similar to Option in Scala.
I was surprised to find out yesterday that you can change your Amazon email address without having to verify the change from your old email account. You only have to verify the new email address. That seems like a flaw.
I sit here on the stairs,
'cause I’d rather be alone.
If I can’t have you right now,
I’ll wait dear.
A. Rose, Patience
bbc.com has a good story on How to super-size your memory using techniques like a memory palace.
(The image is from the bbc.com article.)
ExtremeTech.com has this story about newly restored nuclear test footage. From the article, “Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is in the process of restoring those films, and they’ve uploaded the first batch to YouTube.”
From this story on sciencemag.org:
“NASA’s Curiosity rover usually keeps its instruments firmly focused on Mars’s ground, zapping grit with its laser or drilling cores in bedrock. But every few days, the SUV-sized robot, like any good dreamer, shifts its sights upward to the clouds. Well into its fifth year, the rover has now shot more than 500 movies of the clouds above it, including the first ground-based view of martian clouds shaped by gravity waves ...”
(See the story for more information, and some animations which unfortunately just keep endlessly repeating.)
A little personal enlightenment (from March 22, 2014):
Since I started passing out a few weeks ago, I’ve had conversations with doctors, nurses, friends, and even a shaman caregiver about life, death, quality of life, goals, and desires. I had a hard time answering some of those questions, and yesterday I realized why that was:
If you’re truly living in the present moment, those questions don’t make any sense! You can’t think about life, death, the past, or the future if you’re absorbed in the present moment.
When eating, just eat. When planning for the future, live fully in that moment of planning for the future. And when writing text like this, just write. That’s all.
Here’s a nice 2009 article where Bill Venners interviews Martin Oderksy about the origins of Scala.
“Your purpose in life is to find your purpose and give your whole heart and soul to it.” ~ Buddha
Growing up, I used to envy those people who seemed to be shot out of the womb with a purpose, like they always knew what they wanted to do. But these days I think there’s a great reward in the struggle to find that purpose.
(I seriously doubt that the Buddha actually said that, but hey, it sounds impressive, whoever said it.)
On the drive back from Vegas this weekend, the road got icy in the mountains near Vail, so I decided I better pull off and stay at a hotel, or sleep in the car if necessary. I wasn’t happy about it. Even though it was after 2am, I was jacked up on Mountain Dew, and just wanted to finish the last ninety miles to get home.
I got off the interstate at the next exit. The roads were nasty slick, and I slid around the dark collection of motels and gas stations until I saw a skanky motel whose “Vacancy” sign was lit. My car couldn’t make it up the motel’s hilly entrance, so I parked in an open flat area below, grabbed a bag, and walked five minutes in the freezing precipitation to get to the motel entrance, finding footing anywhere I could.
A case of “The Plague” is reported in Broomfield, Colorado. The story is here at thedenverchannel.com.
A quote from this article by Guy Kawasaki about Steve Jobs:
This experience taught me that you should tell the truth and worry less about the consequences for three reasons:
1) Telling the truth is a test of your character and intelligence. You need strength to tell the truth and intelligence to recognize what is true.
2) People yearn for the truth—that is, telling people that their product is good just to be positive doesn’t help them improve it.
3) There’s only one truth, so it’s easier to be consistent if you’re honest. If you are dishonest, you have to keep track of what you said.
“If you want to be miserable, think of yourself. If you want to be happy, think of others.”
The “TMS For A Cure” website has this great page on medications to treat mast cell disorders.
2017 Iditarod: “The 57-year-old musher from Sterling won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on Tuesday, shattering the speed record by nearly eight hours to steal the title of fastest Iditarod musher ever from his much-younger son, Dallas. ‘Fifty-seven used to be old, and it’s not anymore. I’m just letting you know that,’ Mitch Seavey said.”
See this Alaska Dispatch News story for more information and a nice video.