Scanners (1981) — 6/10

This is a David Cronenberg movie about very special people who can control other people’s minds with their own. The movie is very much of its time—it is basically an action-adventure story of conflicting mind-control factions. The pacing is quite slow by today’s standards, but the story is pretty interesting—even if the parts involving computers are laughable. Also, about a quarter of the movie is taken up with people squinting and sweating at each other, trying to... [More]

Alpha House is a TV show on Amazon Prime about four Republican U.S. Senators living together in a house in Washington D.C. John Goodman is just fantastic as Gil John Biggs. Definitely worth a watch: it might even be better than Veep.

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

Disclaimer: these are notes I took while reading this book. They include citations I found interesting or enlightening or particularly well-written. In some cases, I’ve pointed out which of these applies to which citation; in others, I have not. Any benefit you gain from reading these notes is purely incidental to the purpose they serve of reminding me what I once read. Please see Wikipedia for a summary if I’ve failed to provide one sufficient for your purposes. If my notes serve to trigger an... [More]

The summary below describes major new features, items of note and breaking changes. The full list of issues is also available for those with access to the Encodo issue tracker.

Highlights

These are the big ones that forced a major-version change.

• Rewrote configuration and application API. (QNO-4666, QNO-4679, QNO-4659, QNO-4772, QNO-4663, QNO-4664, QNO-4360)
• Data-driver architecture has been consolidated. All drivers, ADO, Mongo and Remote, now use the same base implementation, logic and... [More]

Microsoft has recently made a lot of their .NET code open-source. Not only is the code for many of the base libraries open-source but also the code for the runtime itself. On top of that, basic .NET development is now much more open to community involvement.

In that spirit, even endeavors like designing the features to be included in the next version of C# are online and open to all: C# Design Meeting Notes for Jan 21, 2015 by Mads Torgerson (GitHub).

C# 6 Recap

You may be surprised at the version number “7”—aren’t... [More]

In part I of these series, we discussed applications, which provide the model and data provider, and sessions, which encapsulate high-level data context. In part II, we covered command types and inputs to the data pipeline.

In this article, we’re going to take a look at the data pipeline itself.

1. Applications & Sessions
2. Command types & inputs
3. The Data Pipeline
4. Builders & Commands
5. Contexts and Connections
6. Sessions, resources & objects

Overview

Major Components of the Data
DriverThe primary goal of the data pipeline is, of... [More]

1. The Unborn (2009) — 5/10
2. Shopgirl (2005) — 6/10
3. The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) — 6/10
4. America’s Sweethearts (2001) — 5/10
5. The Raid 2 (2014) — 8/10
6. Hitman (2007) — 6/10
7. Treme – Seasons 1 & 2 (2010) — 10/10
8. Broken City (2013) — 6/10
9. The Green Hornet (2011) — 4/10
10. Jennifer’s Body (2009) — 4/10
11. Kinky Boots (2005) — 7/10
12. The Battle of Algiers (1966) — 8/10
13. Jacob’s Ladder (1990) — 8/10
14. Shogun Assassin (1980) — 3/10
15. Melinda and Melinda (2004) — 6/10
16. John Wick (2014)... [More]

I read some interesting articles on theories of thought and information recently. The first was an interview/lecture, Formulating Science in Terms of Possible and Impossible Tasks by Chiara Marletto (Edge.org). I can’t claim to understand even half of what she’s talking about, but understanding is tantalizing enough that I feel it might be worth something. I’ve included some citations from the transcript below.

“Yet it also has a radically different perspective on things because, as I said, in the prevailing conception, the... [More]”

As with so many other macroeconomic topics, Dean Baker at CEPR is a good source of information on this one as well. There is a lot of FUD about Greek debt:

• That it will bankrupt Europe (whatever happens to the EU, they’re doing it to themselves),
• That Europe continues to pay out (no payments for over a year now)
• That the Greeks are trying to get out of paying (they’re actually trying to pay interest at a slower rate).

Let’s take a look at some details below.

Interest Rates are too low

... [More]

Top of the pageNews linksA friend recently directed me to Steve Quayle where he’d found a link about Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware (PC World). The article about viruses is a bit hyperbolic but mostly legit. The original web site, though, has some really interesting stuff on it.

It’s actually not too poorly laid-out—Cymax Media made it and their own homepage isn’t too terrible—but the emphasis is hard to parse.

What’s more important than the news links that the site ostensibly... [More]

The main UI, with a batch process in-progressI have a reputation for complaining about software all the time. I feel justified in doing so because most software is disappointing bordering on hateful. I was a proud member and contributor to Hates Software for years.[1]

Therefore, when the opportunity presents itself to laud a piece of software, I feel that it’s my solemn duty to do so.

Introducing Adapter for OS X and Windows. It converts images, audio and video files from one format to another. That is, it puts a lovely UI on top of the... [More]

For the next time the batteries in your Bluetooth mouse die:

Press Ctrl + F2 to focus the Apple menu. From there, you can navigate using the arrow keys.

Found by luck when looking for old comments of mine in the Hates-Software archives.

Excerpt from the comedy routine “Einstein/Weinstein,” by the Yiddish comedy duo Shimon Dzigan and Yisroel Shumacher.