Number Line
Updated on Thursday, November 12, 2015
From The Museum of Mathematics at Discovery Days.
Book reviews for October 2013
Updated on Friday, February 24, 2017
Never Go Back (Jack Reacher, #18) by Lee Child
4/5
Exactly what you'd expect from Reacher. It's a solid thriller and totally on form.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
4/5
The fascinating, troubling and ultimately morally ambiguous story of how a ubiquitous and storied cell line (HeLa) came to be, and the impact this had on the family of Henrietta Lacks (whose cells became HeLa).
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
3/5
The central idea of the book - better to construct small experiments and learn faster - seems right, but for a book about validated learning there is precious little data to support the hypothesis. Do Lean Startups return more money to investors or do they just pivot between slightly different ways to share photos before entering the deadpool at the same rate as Fat Startups? I want to believe Lean is better but a stack of anecdotes about IMVU just isn't enough to convince me.
Also, I hate all business books that start out by explaining how their profound ideas are applicable to all people at all times in all industries before stretching out a paragraph of insight over hundreds of turgid pages.
Lastly always read business books a few years after the peak of their popularity so you get the benefit of hindsight and a chuckle at the companies that are held up as shining examples of the author's methodology at the time but are now dead, festering or mostly incarcerated.
Having said all that I think that the approach is generally right and I appreciate that at several points in the book Ries states that there are no easy answers and no substitute for good judgement.
Book reviews for October 2013
Updated on Friday, February 24, 2017
Never Go Back (Jack Reacher, #18) by Lee Child
4/5
Exactly what you'd expect from Reacher. It's a solid thriller and totally on form.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
4/5
The fascinating, troubling and ultimately morally ambiguous story of how a ubiquitous and storied cell line (HeLa) came to be, and the impact this had on the family of Henrietta Lacks (whose cells became HeLa).
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries
3/5
The central idea of the book - better to construct small experiments and learn faster - seems right, but for a book about validated learning there is precious little data to support the hypothesis. Do Lean Startups return more money to investors or do they just pivot between slightly different ways to share photos before entering the deadpool at the same rate as Fat Startups? I want to believe Lean is better but a stack of anecdotes about IMVU just isn't enough to convince me.
Also, I hate all business books that start out by explaining how their profound ideas are applicable to all people at all times in all industries before stretching out a paragraph of insight over hundreds of turgid pages.
Lastly always read business books a few years after the peak of their popularity so you get the benefit of hindsight and a chuckle at the companies that are held up as shining examples of the author's methodology at the time but are now dead, festering or mostly incarcerated.
Having said all that I think that the approach is generally right and I appreciate that at several points in the book Ries states that there are no easy answers and no substitute for good judgement.
Fortune Cookies for Android
Updated on Thursday, November 12, 2015
Fortune is now available on Google Play. It's an Android version of the UNIX fortune program and will send a random fortune cookie to your notification area at 8ish every morning.
ZoneInfo Update (tzdata for .NET)
Updated on Thursday, December 26, 2019
I've used the ZoneInfo (PublicDomain.ZoneInfo) project from CodePlex for quite a few years, especially in Catfood Earth. The project had rusted a little so I emailed the author (Mark Rodrigues) and he was kind enough to add me as a developer. I've just updated ZoneInfo with some of the local changes I'd made and a variety of patches from the CodePlex community. It now works with the latest IANA tzdata file, at least for the test cases I can run. Let me know if I missed something (and thanks Mark for letting me contribute back to this very helpful project).
I really want to just blame Boehner...
Updated on Thursday, November 12, 2015
...but if you can't keep a Government open the consequence should be an election and not a stalemate.
Staying Chrome?
Updated on Thursday, November 12, 2015
I've been using my Samsung Chromebook at work for around ten months now. It's not my main computer but it's a meeting survival powerhouse for email, instant messaging and note taking. The battery lasts approximately forever, it boots immediately and the decent keyboard and trackpad are just miles ahead of fumbling around on a tablet.
There are two problems for me with the Chrome universe. One will probably get fixed, one could be a deal breaker.
The first issue is VPN support. Apparently we use some sort of old, fiddly Cisco VPN that ChromeOS simply won't talk to. I filed Issue 261241 in the Chromium bug tracker and hopefully it will get fixed soon. If you're struggling with the same thing please star the bug report.
I can work around the VPN problem by using LogMeIn or Chrome Remote Desktop. But I can't live long without Skype. Actually I'd be perfectly happy to never use Skype again but my company runs on about fifty thousand Skype chats. I used Imo.IM for a while but they were forced to drop Skype support. Right now I'm using IM+ which as far as I'm aware is the only working Skype option for a Chromebook (please tell me if I'm wrong) but it's buggy and can't restore a connection between sessions. I either need to find a way to kill Skype at work or wait for (or write) a better web-only client.
Probably worth sticking it out, Gartner reports a 8.6% fall in PC sales but predicts Chromebooks growing to over 12 million units by 2016.
(Read the full Chromebook adventure: Part 1: Going Chrome, Part 2: Staying Chrome? and Part 3: Leaving Chrome)
(Image by he4rtofcourage, CC).
Memo to future: How to reassemble Kate’s cot
Updated on Friday, February 24, 2017
The long bolts with plastic washers attach to the head and foot of the cot (1). These are easier to screw in using a drill with a hex bit. Put the four smallest bolts through the holes (2) before attaching the sides or you’ll be taking the sides off again. These will be used to attach the mattress spring.
Cams go in the head and foot (1), smallest bolts as described above (2).
Now just attach the sides with the medium bolts and then the mattress spring using the wing nuts.
Missing one of the medium bolts? It’s in this bag somewhere. When asking Kate to help by putting bolts in a bag remember to be very, very specific about which bag next time. The rest of the hardware is in a Ziploc in a side pocket.