Which, of course, begs the question: just what is keeping you awake, then? My hypothesis is that the brain and body are lazy. You ingest caffeinated beverages for a while; they get used to responding in a certain way. You start ingesting otherwise-identical decaffeinated beverages instead, and they respond in the same way because they’re [...]
Archive of entries posted on May 2009
“Are Your ‘Secret Questions’ Too Easily Answered?”
I know that everyone heard about the Sarah Palin secret-question attack. I suspect most people thought “I really ought to check my own secret questions…” and then forgot about it. Well, this is your reminder to do something about them.
“Sophos punts anti-virus for Klingons”
I never thought I’d see the day…
“EC wants software makers held liable for code”
At first glance, something like this seems to be a good idea for consumers. But as a software developer, I can say with complete certainty that it would drive the cost of software into the stratosphere, and run every software company that’s smaller than Microsoft or IBM out of business. And if Microsoft had the [...]
“Long-exposure photo of Roomba coverage”
I never thought to do something like this. I wonder if it’s that good on a really large room, like the open-concept living room/dining room/kitchen that is our main floor?
“eBay driving world’s tomb raiders out of business, says prof”
It seems that the way the Internet drives down prices by eliminating the middlemen is actually doing some good for someone other than the buyer, for a change.
Know Thyself: Habits
This is the first of several planned follow-ups to my previous entry on self-knowledge. As mentioned there, in the last year or so I haven’t had much reason to get out of bed in the morning. Literally — I was in bed until nearly noon most days, despite having gone to bed between midnight and [...]
“Afflicted with Allelomimesis — Why People Behave as if They’re Broke When They’re Not”
Interesting.
BTRFS
As you might remember, I wrote an entry on using the ZFS file system for my older network backup drive a while back, and how nice it was to have the protection of block checksums, ensuring that files can’t get silently corrupted. But for various reasons, I was forced to abandon ZFS on my new [...]
“The Magic of Unity Builds”
This hack seems appalling when you first understand it… but when you read the timing results at the end, you’ll see that it really can be worth it if you’ve got a big project. Hm, Project Badger takes a long time to compile…