It's Hot!

T Man

Those running Windows can see, at any moment, what their computer

is calling, with the Task Manager.

Shift, Ctrl and Esc together:

An equally intriguing link - wich I found on the German wiki for .dll - is for tan
utility which proposes a hierarchy of computer uses:

http://www.dependencywalker.com/

Vice, the mag

At last, someone makes sense of Egypt and women demonstrators:



http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/the-place-women-go-to-get-raped-012378-v20n8

Ah Culture!

As I adventure into the world of computing, a lecture from Standford Engineering has

gifted me with a bit of insight into robotics as an element of culture. In effect, the

introductory class in programming methodology is done with the aid of Karel's Robot,

picured below.

The reference is to a 1920 play byCzech writer Karel Capek, Rossum's Universal Robots,

in which we find the word robot for the first time. It is close to the Czech word for forced

or serf labor, but the German Wiki cites the influence of K's brother Josef, an inventor. RUR is

the name of the firm in which the clones work, and they rebel and eventually destroy

humanity but not without first finding love.

German Wikipedia furher informs us that 'Rossum' is close to the Czech word rozum which

means undertanding or intelligence. And that the theme of the play picks up on the notion

of the Golem of jewish tradition. A very rich tradition it is, going back to biblical times.

The Golem is a creature made of mud, imbued with life but unable to speak: it is brought

to life by invoking one of the many names of God but can be deactivated, for example by

removing the first letter(A) x, the aleph, form it's name.

I could happily spend my saturday on all this, but I think the true homework assignement

is downloading Eclipse, The IDE for Java. Not to mention my ongoing travails with Xna

gaming.

The honor rule for computing is do not copy code, or if you do, cite. The latter practice will

get you a zero grade but keep you out of trouble.

Brings back old flopsweat memories...But I actually designed the following as my vilain ship

yesterday, honest.

 

ByVal

Washington Post

The recent acquisition of the Washington Post by Jeff Bezoz, founder of

Amazon, has set up a very interesting series of accounts of how and why he

would ever do such a thing. Short answer, no one has a clue. The commentary

is coming from the ranks of the press, and offers an unattractive glimpse at just how

depressed and paranoid press folk are these days. 

The New Yorker takes it from the Warren Buffett angle; if Mr. B didn’t take it, well

it’s a dud. At that price, anyway (250 mil, with a cap on pensions). The

assumption being that those money people will pick up anything, anytime there is a sweet 

dollar to be made.

I have never actually held a W Post in my hand but I have consulted the Web site on a few 

occasions. Those few times were, in point of fact, totally crucial; like wanting to know if the U.S. 

was at war and the like. And every time the Post told me what I wanted

to know, and that before anyone else on the Web. Those Post people are there, contacting 

the right people, drinking at the right bars. They cover the seat of government better than 

anyone else. Am I the only one - other than Jeff B. - to

appreciate this fact. I don’t read them more often because I can’t take the strain of

knowing all that, everyday; I have a life, work on computing problems. They just better

be there when I need them.

The European press has been telling me all kinds of things about Jeff B I didn’t know.

He is wonderfully creative and his acquisition heralds one generation of media presence

scavenging a former one. Certainly so from the point of view of jobs and employment

conditions, at which Le Monde hints darkly. Will he find a way to make money here? My 

guess, oh yes. Because the Web changes the matrix of culture and localization, but there still is one. 

For example, I consult the Web site of the Los Angeles Times almost everyday even though 

I live at the other side of the continent, in a French-speaking community. I don’t have a 

subscription: I’m not going to eat lunch there. I used to enjoy their food and restaurant section 

very much, in a literary sort of a way. I still peruse what their foodies are worried about. And 

they are a wonderful font of good taste on ‘industry’ matters. Is Lindsay Lohan over the edge or 

just marketing her leggings brand. The L.A. Times knows.

The Nouvel Obs thinks Jeff B bought the paper like one buys a vintage car, as a little

reward to oneself. He also went looking for a moon mission rocket at the bottom of the ocean, 

a true collector of the tech age. But unlike Gates and others, he is a profoundly anti-charity 

kind of person, keeping employment high in the Seattle region. Here I know something 

about Seattle that the Parisian crew from the Obs doesn’t know. Seattle

is the home not only of Microsoft and Starbucks, it is also where the major gaming

companies have their headquarters, where the coders and graphic artists put in their

hours. How interesting is that. The Obs muses that Bezos wants better access to

government; I’m not so sure that’s how it works...

Real Deal

Tres leches cake:

http://viteunerecette.ca/Zeste/?bclid=1428520797001&bctid=1864524399001

Nice!!

A nice tutorial on typecasting in C#.




Just to be clear on the accuracy question, the float is a floating-point variable
accurate to 7 decimals. In the example below, the number is converted to scientific
notation and the 7th decimal point is rounded. Where the point is initially is not
an issue.

Why_not

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/doctor-sam-parnia-believes-resurrection-is-a-medical-possibility-a-913075.html