A Woman of No Importance
Appropriate for Memorial Day and the reflection it deserves. A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell tells the story of SOE, OSS and CIA agent Virginia Hall, winner of the Distinguished Service Cross, the French Croix de Guerre, and the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (man does that sound British) for her…
Bionic!
Last Tuesday I got up in the morning, showered and ate some breakfast, took the dog out, did the crossword, got a new pair of eyes, took a nap, watched the Mariners game and went to bed. In case you missed that, I got a new pair of eyes. OK, new lenses to be precise,…
Every Mistake
I’ve been working on myself for fifty-four years; software for about forty; kids for almost thirty; and (as Jim says) sawdust for six or so. Whatever the domain, sometimes projects go great and sometimes they, well, don’t. But it’s hard for me to think of anything I’ve tried — even the worst of them —…
15 Minute Beach Bamboo Whistle
A few weeks ago we got to spend some time in Ventura. What a beautiful spot, despite the (record, just saying) low temps and rainfall. The beach there is fantastic — uncrowded, great sand, interesting driftwood, rocks and seaglass, surfers and fisherfolk to watch, and tons of friendly dogs for Copper to play with. Nothing…
The Most Important ChatGPT App Ever
I’ll grant that I have a relatively nerdy social circle — but it’s still sort of shocking just how many people I know are actually doing useful and interesting things with ChatGPT. Just a sampling: Just to iterate what I’ve said before, I believe this thing is really real, and it behooves everyone to spend…
Looking back at Azyxxi… er, Amalga.
Just a few months after the Great Gunshot Search incident of 2005, I found myself at Washington Hospital Center while Dr. Craig Feied showed us list after list on a huge (for the time) monitor. Real-time patient rosters for the ER and ICU, sure, but that was just the warmup. Rooms that needed cleaning. Patients…
Roku Channel SDK: Ferry Cameras!
Lara and I shuttle regularly between Bellevue and Whidbey Island in Washington, so the Mukilteo-Clinton ferry is a big part of our life. WA actually runs the largest ferry system in the USA, with 28 boats tooting around the Puget Sound area. Super fun day trips all over the place, and the ships are pretty…
Skynet or parlor trick? ChatGPT is both and neither and more.
If you haven’t played around with ChatGPT yet, you really should. It’s a pretty remarkable “conversational model” that interacts more or less like a real person. It has been trained on an enormous amount of factual data and understands not just informal speech (“Why are so many people bad at parking?”) but forms of literature…
TMI about Diverticulitis
Pretty unusual topic here — but it’s one that (a) has been taking up most of my brain the last few days, and (b) will hopefully be useful search fodder for others who find themselves in a similar way. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the various stages were “really”…
It’s Always a Normalization Problem
Heads up, this is another nerdy one! ShareToRoku is available on the Google Play store. All of the client and server code is up on my github under MIT license; I hope folks find it useful and/or interesting. Algorithms are the cool kids of software engineering. We spend whole semesters learning to sort and find…
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