Topics on my particular interests.
A few months ago, I thought I’d found the answer to my motivation problems. A tweak to my purpose, thought I, and all would be well. As usual, things weren’t that simple… it helped, but after the initial surge of enthusiasm wore off, I discovered that it didn’t make enough difference to keep me moving. …
Continue reading ‘Know Thyself: Goals, Context, and Purpose’ »
Hm… I could use a few extra healthy decades…
Oh, GoddessJ and several of our more feminist-leaning friends should have a field day with this one.
I was born in 1970, the year after the first moon landing. Throughout my entire life, every reference I heard about it silently reinforced the assumption that mankind had been to the moon. So when I heard that some people thought that it was a hoax made in a movie studio, I was perplexed. I …
They say reality is stranger than fiction…
This week, after more than six years of effort, I finally solved what seems to be the last theoretical problem to Project X. I have the entire high-level design now. Parts of it may still need some tweaks, but the whole thing hangs together remarkably well. It’s both a lot simpler overall, and a lot …
Ploni Almoni sent me this link recently. I read it, amused and agreeing with almost everything — until I got to the end: In short, I hate software — most of all and especially my own — because I know how hard it is to get it right. It may sound strange, but it’s a …
Continue reading ‘“Nobody Hates Software More Than Software Developers”’ »
I’ve been working on my chess game lately, in an attempt to improve my logic skills. It has apparently worked… previously, any computer chess game would mop the floor with me on any but the absolute lowest skill setting (and sometimes even then). Now I can beat the Caissa Chess program on my iPod Touch …
Chang Díaz believes that VASIMR could usefully glean its electric power from solar panels if it was operating close to the sun (Mars would be the extreme outer limit) or from onboard nuclear reactors further away. He calculates that a nuclear VASIMR craft could get to Mars in just 39 days, as opposed to the …
Friend and occasional-commenter c-square sent me this video link. It does seem that the Roomba and Pac-Man go together remarkably well. 🙂