Gave up on the Lenovo laptop that's been giving me problems since I got it, and got a low-end HP laptop...

Gave up on the Lenovo laptop that's been giving me problems since I got it, and got a low-end HP laptop to fill the gap.

A few things: by default, it's function-on, so hitting the F6 key is sound mute unless I hit the function key to make it serve as F6. Which is ... okay? I mean, I can see it either way.

Second, it didn't have onboard Bluetooth, but I have a BTLE dongle, and was able to have the FitBit live tile sync with my FitBit, meaning I can take the dongle home and connect it to my HTPC. Which is kinda win.

It's big enough to have the numpad, and I'm slowly learning to like the keyboard. It's black plastic but nearly ultrabook thin. with no VGA and two USB 3 ports. Gotta say, I'm liking it.

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Come to think of it, I should likely use require instead of use inside that subclass.

Come to think of it,  I should likely use require instead of use inside that subclass.

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But Wait! There's More! Extendable DRY API Code The previous post wasn't built in a vacuum. I was chasing...

But Wait! There's More! Extendable DRY API Code
The previous post wasn't built in a vacuum. I was chasing down ideas for a purpose. I've been building JSON APIs for the lab for quite some time, each with as much knowledge about them as I had at that time, which means I have a number of bad APIs out there...

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Filling a Dispatch Table For Ease of Development and DRY I hate magic. Don't get me wrong. If the night's...

Filling a Dispatch Table For Ease of Development and DRY
I hate magic. Don't get me wrong. If the night's entertainment is going to see Penn & Teller, I'll enjoy myself like anyone else, but when I have to work with it, I hate magic. I hate magic because there's an implicit promise of "this will always work" , an...

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"While stuck by himself on the red planet, Watney is very literally the most isolated person to ever...

"While stuck by himself on the red planet, Watney is very literally the most isolated person to ever live—more than ten times more distant from any other human being than even the Apollo astronauts were when they visited the Moon."

When furthest away, the Moon is ~400,000 km away from Earth.

When closest, Mars is ~54,000,000 km away. 

That is more than ten times more distant, I guess.

http://ift.tt/1NCKULb

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Now I Am A C# Developer It started with Instagram. I wanted to be able to have my most recent Instagram...

Now I Am A C# Developer
It started with Instagram. I wanted to be able to have my most recent Instagram picture become my background. For my Android, tablet, that was easy. I just used IFTTT to connect the Instagram channel to the Android Device channel and that was that. I wrote ...

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I wrote C# that sets a JPG as my background image. Next steps: * downloading my most recent Instagram...

I wrote C# that sets a JPG as my background image.

Next steps:

* downloading my most recent Instagram image to set as the background

* scheduling it to happen every hour

* putting the code on GitHub

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Next time, maybe write "baby bunnies" instead of just "stay away"?

Next time, maybe write "baby bunnies" instead of just "stay away"?

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I always wonder, when people talk about Ubiquitous Computing, how much they're familiar with Weiser's...

I always wonder, when people talk about Ubiquitous Computing, how much they're familiar with Weiser's original ideas on it. I suppose tracking activity without carrying a watch counts. 

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Devil's Dictionary of Programming

Devil's Dictionary of Programming

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"The biggest mistake I've ever seen in programming is optimism."

"The biggest mistake I've ever seen in programming is optimism."

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OK, now my Internet Button is both using Spark.publish() to tell the log a thing and illuminating the...

OK, now my Internet Button is both using Spark.publish() to tell the log a thing and illuminating the LEDs. Now, to make it accept button input.

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My attempts to tell my Photon too do something they I can identify have so far failed.

My attempts to tell my Photon too do something they I can identify have so far failed.

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It is here

It is here

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Another question: is the PowerShell problem Win10-specific, or is it replicated on earlier versions?...

Another question: is the PowerShell problem Win10-specific, or is it replicated on earlier versions? I have Win7 at work. I have Win8 connected to my TV, but that's not set up for development....

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I Need To Write This Up To Understand It, or The Epic Battle between Wat and Derp! I've signed up for...

I Need To Write This Up To Understand It, or The Epic Battle between Wat and Derp!
I've signed up for Neil Bowers ' Pull Request Challenge , as I've blogged about before . This month, I'm working with System::Command . It's neat, a step up from system calls, and as I understand it, integral to handling Git programmically. If I wasn't elbo...

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I Need To Write This Up To Understand It, or The Epic Battle between Wat and Derp! I've signed up for...

I Need To Write This Up To Understand It, or The Epic Battle between Wat and Derp!
I've signed up for Neil Bowers ' Pull Request Challenge , as I've blogged about before . This month, I'm working with System::Command . It's neat, a step up from system calls, and as I understand it, integral to handling Git programmically. If I wasn't elbo...

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Would like to hear +Ben Cotton 's take on this talk

Would like to hear +Ben Cotton 's take on this talk

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'the correct answer to “How do you reverse a linked list” is “Thanks for your time but I’ll see myself...

'the correct answer to “How do you reverse a linked list” is “Thanks for your time but I’ll see myself out”

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In some ways, I wonder if this will be used as an excuse. In others, I knew first-hand how small changes...

In some ways, I wonder if this will be used as an excuse. In others, I knew first-hand how small changes you wouldn't expect to matter can lead to massive changes in body composition.

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Marshmallow!

Marshmallow!

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I Am Unlikely To Move To Perl6 A camel in Busch Gardens in St. Louis. I'm working on a project, which...

I Am Unlikely To Move To Perl6
A camel in Busch Gardens in St. Louis. I'm working on a project, which I will blog otherwise. This project is my hope to get into CPAN and level up my Perl game. I am still in progress, so it sits in the earliest stages of construction, with the bare minimu...

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I found several bugs in the hardware...

I found several bugs in the hardware...

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I did know this, because I saw a YAPC::NA talk on names.

I did know this, because I saw a YAPC::NA talk on names.

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Yes, this indicates that the major problem is infrastructure, that the cars themselves are solid but...

Yes, this indicates that the major problem is infrastructure, that the cars themselves are solid but, like William Gibson says, the future isn't well-distributed.

Gas stations are currently for everyone, and are set up in neighborhoods for quick entry, quick use and quick exit. If everyone has a charger in their garage and topping off their cars every night, the gas station has no purpose most places, but near major roads, I could see large charging stations, dirt of on the truck stop model. If it takes several hours to max your battery, it'll be important to have something for you to do, for your bored children to do, for that time.

I think that, for daily commuter cars, electric vehicles are all but perfect, but we don't think of cars as specific tools like that, but as all-purpose gear, and it irks me to think that I could drive to with and back, no problem, but driving to Indy for a user group meeting or driving to the West to see family becomes unthinkable.

So, question becomes, does this mean the end of the cross-country car? The return of passenger train?

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Odds are low that there is a Windows 10 driver for this

Odds are low that there is a Windows 10 driver for this

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I suppose there could be a bright side.

I suppose there could be a bright side.

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Watching this, I was suddenly inspired. "Yes," I thought, "SublimeText is not Open Source, but Atom ...

Watching this, I was suddenly inspired. "Yes," I thought, "SublimeText is not Open Source, but Atom is. Why don't I try to install and use it at work?"

Then I tried. And the .deb isn't of the right architecture and won't install.

Otherwise, good stuff. 

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I have a #Perl module that uses Net::OpenSSH to connect to Globus Online to share directories full of...

I have a #Perl module that uses Net::OpenSSH to connect to Globus Online to share directories full of scientific data. It covers the primitives well enough for work to move forward.

But I don't know what "move forward" means right now. 

Been thinking about making it into Net::Globus and putting it into CPAN, but it seems a bit more involved than I want for my first CPAN module. Also, I am not sure how you write tests against a service when you don't have authentication against the service at the testing stage.

So I don't know what to do right now.

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Nice performance win for Wikipedia! Async all the scripts! Source: https://twitter.com/mediawiki/status...

Nice performance win for Wikipedia! Async all the scripts!

Source: https://twitter.com/mediawiki/status/630865572654264320

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#document #onmywalk

#document #onmywalk

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#sarcasm

#sarcasm

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Splice wire like a NASA rocket scientist.

Splice wire like a NASA rocket scientist.

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I admit, it made me laugh

I admit, it made me laugh

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"The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he...

"The competent programmer is fully aware of the strictly limited size of his own skull; therefore he approaches the programming task in full humility, and among other things he avoids clever tricks like the plague." -- Edsger Dijkstra 
http://ift.tt/17Kp3tt

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Considering a new laptop. Since almost all of my entertainment needs are satisfied by my tablet and ...

Considering a new laptop. Since almost all of my entertainment needs are satisfied by my tablet and my Chromecast, this would be largely for development. Some writing, as I've been blogging more, but mostly development.

Here's what I think I want:

* 8GB Memory
* 128GB+ SSD - not sure how much more Plus, but at least some plus
* USB3 in at least one port
* at least 13" screen
* no optical drive 
* more brushed aluminum, less breakable plastic

I'm not sure if I want Core I7 or if Core I5 would do. I'm reasonably sure I don't want a touch screen: I touch my tablet's screen and it gets greasy and gross. I don't want that for a screen.

I like the idea of running OSX. It's a real Unix, descended from Ritchie and Thompson. I just think there's a $500 difference between the MacBooks I've seen and equivalent PC hardware, and I'm not sure what I'm getting for that. If someone else was paying for it, sure, I'll go for that, but not on my own dime.

Someone I know rocks a Dell XPS 13, and it looks right about what I want. I'm torn between running Linux and running Windows 10 on it. I know I could install Linux and put Win10 on a VM, but I've had problems trying to get developer tools running in a VM before.

So, what am I forgetting? What should I know?

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I use Thunderbird. Sometimes, often but not all the time, when I send a mail, the compose window doesn't...

I use Thunderbird. Sometimes, often but not all the time, when I send a mail, the compose window doesn't close, but becomes the window next time I start an email. Clearly a weird bug.

How do I report this?

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This is exactly where you need "links in the doobly-doo"

This is exactly where you need "links in the doobly-doo"

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I wanted to say you're never tardy with a TARDIS, but then I remembered The Girl Who Waited... :/ #...

I wanted to say you're never tardy with a TARDIS, but then I remembered The Girl Who Waited... :/

#Geek   #TimeTravel   #StudentLife   #StudentAtHome  

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A little drying and sanding and the laser cut will pop.

A little drying and sanding and the laser cut will pop.

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Progress was made

Progress was made

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My #1 empty catch use is with web code for personal use. If I'm scraping a site and it doesn't work ...

My #1 empty catch use is with web code for personal use. If I'm scraping a site and it doesn't work at 3am but I know it'll repeat at 4am, etc, a one-off failure to work doesn't bother me.

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You owe it to your kid and yourself to have this uncomfortable conversation sooner rather than later...

You owe it to your kid and yourself to have this uncomfortable conversation sooner rather than later.

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What Language Should I Learn? Three Answers A friend of mine, who works in IT but is not a developer...

What Language Should I Learn? Three Answers
A friend of mine, who works in IT but is not a developer, asked me a question during lunch today. "I want to learn to program. What language should I learn first?" This is a common question, one I have answered before. But, because I've blogged a lot recent...

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