Let me compare the experience I wrote about yesterday to another I had the same year with the first customer I was ever sent to – HSBC. Just a couple weeks after starting with ProServe in 2008, I was sent to Chicago to do a final PoC for HSBC. Someone else had done a PoC …
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you can make anything online – even grave markers
Knock yourself out. http://www.tombstonebuilder.com http://www.customreceipt.com http://www.customweddingsign.com http://www.prescriptionmaker.com http://www.eyechartmaker.com http://www.customroadsign.com http://www.getamedal.com
a history of hollywood and hacking
As shared in the most recent Crypto-Gram, {{Bruce Schneier}}’s monthly newsletter. 1980s – kid hackers, nerds and Richard Pryor 1990s – Techno, virtual reality and Steven Seagal’s Apple Newton 2000s – Real life hackers, computer punks and Hugh Jackman dancing
lock screen slideshow in windows 10
In similar fashion to what I wrote about for {{OS X}} last year, and spurred by this article from {{Microsoft}}, here is my brief guide for doing the same on {{Windows 10}}. Click your Notifications button near the clock. Now click All Settings And you’ll see this Click Personalization, then Lock Screen. Select “Slideshow” from the …
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hey yahoo! sports – why not always post the magic number for every team?
Since the magic number (and I’ll take the example of baseball, because while I don’t get to watch them much, I do follow the Mets) is so easy to calculate, why not post it on the standings as soon as there have been games played? This would be a good use of technology relative to baseball …
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ifttt & box drive my desktop backgrounds … with a little cron happiness
I love that {{OS X}} lets me change my background on a schedule (I use every 30 minutes now). But I don’t like having to find pictures to populate my desktop menagerie with. Enter completely SFW backgrounds via RSS feeds! Using IFTTT, I watch for new items from a variety of daily photo feeds, and …
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programming your home by mike riley
{{Mike Riley}}’s entry in {{The Pragmatic Programmers}} series, {{Programming Your Home}} – automating with {{Arduino}}, {{Android}}, and your computer – was a lot of fun. While I am not really in a position to do many of the mini projects given in the book (wrong type of house plus we rent), reading some of the …
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the announcer’s test
{via wikipedia} One hen Two ducks Three squawking geese Four Limerick oysters Five corpulent porpoises Six pairs of Don Alverzo’s tweezers Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array Eight brass monkeys from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth …
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100000 years ago tonight …
… in binary. Not sure how DST factors into it all, but my parents welcomed me into the world approximately 32 years ago now (at 2323 local time in 1981). It’s been a great first 25 years, and I can’t wait for the next 26!
olf 2013 in the bag
This past weekend I went to OLF with my friend Peter and a fella who’s now more than an acquaintance, Nathaniel – one of the lead devs for FreeIPA at Red Hat. Got to go to a variety of great talks and sessions, met some awesome folks, and just generally enjoyed the geek weekend 🙂 I’ll be …
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an rts or tbs game like aoe or civ, but where the player only influences via stealth and espionage
That may be the longest blog title I’ve ever had. I know I will never be a game developer. I thought several years ago it would be something I’d like to get into, but it’s just not me. However, I do enjoy playing certain kinds of games – especially the strategy and puzzle varieties. I …
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maps
I love maps. I have a calendar with historical maps on my wall next to my desk. I love books based around atlases (such as the {{Historical Atlas of}} series (many by {{Ian Barnes}} (similarly related review)). I like going to museums, visiting websites, used book shops, etc and just peruse the maps. I used to …
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gardening efficiently – for fun and profit
I have gardened off and on for most of my life. Back in the 1980s, there was a show called “Square Foot Gardening” on PBS hosted by Mel Bartholomew. Now there is a website. When we lived in Albany, we purchased the book {{Square Foot Gardening}} (which has been updated and simplified even further by …
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thanks, {redacted}
A friend and coworker owns a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, and invited my wife and I to spend part-to-all of a week with him and his wife there at the beginning of March – doing a “WFC1” week instead of being ‘merely’ WFH2 (like we normally are).. He arrived Saturday morning with his wife, …
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haiku mirror
I am now running an official Haiku mirror: haiku.datente.com. Alpha 4.1 has been released, and you can get a copy from any of the mirrors.
some great finds
Diagram.ly – it’s sorta like Visio, but free, and web-based. Meetings.io – like webex, including conference calling and file and screen sharing. Qama – a calculator that doesn’t give an answer until you provide a “reasonable” guess. Udacity – a free computer science program. Urbanchickens – dedicated to raising chickens in “non-traditional” environments (like cities).
groupon is no good!
I think I might have to boycott Groupon: a few months back they had a deal for an introductory flight, first ground school time, and pilot log book for about 50% off the normal rate from the local flight training company, NexGen Aviation. I arrive at the airport a little before 1400 for my flight …
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technical career development
Career development. Career path. Development opportunities. Taking your career to the next level. Terms and phrases we all hear and pretty much pass over in our day-to-day lives. Right up until we want to move to a new/better job or performance reviews roll around. But what do they mean, and how can you advance your …
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reading again
Wow. It’s been several months since I last posted a book review. I have been reading in the mean time – just haven’t gotten around to posting any of them hereon. In the intervening months I’ve read {{1434}} by {{Gavin Menzies}} (follow-on to 1421) and {{The Lost City of Z}} by {{David Grann}}. I’m currently reading …
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new SE site!
There is a new Stack Exchange site called “Christianity” now active. I’m user 69.
light shows
I’ve recently had some travel for work that had put me up in Indianapolis. Tuesday evening I watched the best light show ever: a miles-high, miles-wide thunderhead flashing nearly constantly for over 30 minutes. It was a little east of where I was staying in Fishers, but man was it pretty! For the record, God’s …
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connexions
A few years ago I was working for Sigma Xi as an intern, and was introduced to the then-young Connexions project from Rice University. This week I was reminded of the service, and have started looking into ways I can contribute to their open repository of educational materials. I’d written two articles published there when …
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auctions
Following-on with what my wife wrote last week, we’ve been enjoying going to local auction houses again recently – even on nights when there’s nothing we want, it’s still at the very least entertaining 🙂 The last couple times we’ve gone, we’ve been to the Williamsburg Auction Center, near where my wife grew up. The building …
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1421 by gavin menzies
I enjoy histories – especially when delivered in the format that {{Gavin Menzies}} employed in “{{1421}} – The Year China Discovered America”. The only other history I have read in the past 5 years I can recall reading so fast was Gideon’s Spies. Gavin makes a compelling presentation, interpretation, application, and conclusion of a host …
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the cuckoo’s egg by cliff stoll
Several years ago, {{Cliff Stoll}}’s amazing, true-life account of espionage and system administration in the 1980s was recommended to me. Mr Stoll started his professional life in astronomy, but, due to budget cuts at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, he moved into systems administration. Interspersed through the book are both political commentaries (he was after all at …
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