“The Dangers of Auto-Replace”
The humorous consequences of an automated editor.
Archive of entries posted on June 2008
“E-Mail After the Rapture”
I’ve always liked Bruce Schneier, a very well-known security professional. Earlier this month, he tackled the thorny question of how You’ve Been Left Behind, a post-Rapture service for those who believe in that Christian concept, secures the information that you give them to ensure that it won’t be stolen or prematurely released. If you’re not …
Goodbye, Windows XP
A sad farewell to Windows XP. It wasn’t the greatest, but it was a lot better than the piece-of-excrement successor that Microsoft is trying to force on everyone right now.
“Making vinyl records the old-fashioned way”
It seems that the LP is making a comeback, thanks (indirectly) to the iPod.
“#ifdef Considered Harmful”
This is an old (1992) paper on writing cross-platform C programs, but it’s useful nonetheless. A lot of the problems highlighted in it have all but vanished over the intervening years, but the general ideas are still valid, even on Windows machines. (Have you ever tried writing a non-trivial Windows application, using the raw Win32 …
#ifdef or #if defined?
One of my co-workers discovered an interesting item in the #ifdef/#ifndef entry of the help files for Microsoft Visual C++ 2005: These directives are provided only for compatibility with previous versions of the language. The defined( identifier ) constant expression used with the #if directive is preferred. (Update: The same statement is in the help …
Paper Spam!
A friend of mine noticed that an envelope had been slid under his apartment door yesterday, containing a hand-written note: Hi! Every time I see you I think how beautiful and georgious you are and want to get to know you better. Don’t get me wrong, I just want to be your friend. If you …
“San Franciscans prep monument to US prez”
The “George W. Bush Sewer Plant.” How fitting.
“Yes! It’s the Knight Rider satnav!”
This sounds cheesy in the extreme, but I want one anyway. 🙂
“The Ultimate Code Kata”
Jeff Atwood has a good article on using practice-programming to continually hone your programming skills: Contrary to what you might believe, merely doing your job every day doesn’t qualify as real practice. Going to meetings isn’t practicing your people skills, and replying to mail isn’t practicing your typing. You have to set aside some time …