Archive 2020
PowerShell and NAPTR DNS records. Help!
I can’t figure out how to
read moreAdd-orRemove-an NAPTR record using PowerShell’s DnsServer module. Can you?Canon Imageclass Scanning to Gmail
Configuring my new Canon printer to scan to gmail was a bit tricky.
read moreSchools should teach more statistics, less calculus
Why don’t (most) public schools teach statistics?
read moreDie Hard is anti-American propaganda
[NOTE: This is a rough draft of a rant.]
Is “Die Hard” a Christmas film? Who cares!
Die Hard is anti-American propaganda. It is full of lies that give people the impression that the U.S. government can’t do anything right. Anyone raised seeing that movie will grow up with misconceptions about the government that are harmful to our society.
read moreLauren Gunderson's advice to actors
When I read this acting advice by Lauren Gunderson it dawned on me how powerful it would be if every tech conference speaker applied it to their talks. Change her word “scene” to “slide” (or section) and it mostly fits.
read moreThe long road to publishing a scientific paper
Here’s an infographic from Kathryn M. Everson.
I didn’t write it, but I want to make it available outside of social media where it is hard to surface. (I hope she doesn’t mind.)
What I love about this is that it explains that real science is slow and takes time. Hollywood movies portray science as a series of overnight miracles; Star Trek shows Jordi inventing entire new categories of science by the end of a 60-minute episode. Real science takes years. Real science is boring 99.99 percent of the time, punctuated by amazing discoveries. Real scientists are underpaid and over-worked.
Having a youtube channel is unrelated to someone’s qualifications.
read moreBillionaires Shouldn't Exist
Here’s a meme that I collected from social media. I didn’t write it, but I thought I’d make it accessible here.
read moreEvading or leveraging macOS's DNS mucking
There are times when macOS mucks with DNS lookups. For example, a corporate VPN client might tell macOS that DNS lookups for certain domains (i.e. domains inside the company) are to be handled differently.
read moreRefactoring a Loop That Was Trying Too Hard
I fixed bug last night.
The bug was difficult to fix because the code was so complex. I wasn’t really able to fix it until I simplified the code. Once the code was simplified the bug was easy to fix. While doing this I found an anti-pattern that I now call “One loop trying too hard”.
read moreBiden Has a Mandate!
Biden has a mandate.
read moreGoogle GSuite (nee Workplace) Secrets!
Here are some of my favorite secrets about Google Docs, Google Sheets, Gmail, etc.
read moreThe First Amendment tells a story
Did you know that buried in the U.S. Constitution is a story? It’s in the first amendment!
read moreTrump's COVID-19 Test
I learned that President Reagan was shot while walking home from school. I was about a block away from my house and I remember running the whole way home.
read moreWhich option to pick?
If you have zero knowledge and need to make a decision, here’s some advice.
read moreShipping used to be 6-8 weeks
Remember back in the old days when if you ordered anything from a company, delivery was “6 to 8 weeks”?
read moreTrump's Virus, Trump's Pandemic, Trump's Fault!
According to The Red Cross, there are fewer house fires in December and January.
read moreThe Linux 'cal' command
Five things you should know about the Linux
calcommand. There are many, many, more features listed in the man page but these are the ones you should know.The Unix
read morecalcommand appeared in 1973 in what was called “Version 5 AT&T UNIX”. Linux and macOS (and all *BSD systems) have very different clones. Check the man page for details.The Best Personal Financial Advice I've Ever Gotten!
An open letter to Uncle Bob about "Defund The Police"
You’ve tweeted that you feel “defund the police” is a terrible policy. I hope to change your mind.
Ignore the name. It is imperfect. In software engineering terms, “defund the police” is similar to the strangler pattern.
For the non-engineers reading this, TSP is a reasonable, pragmatic, and down-to-earth way to slowly replacement an old system with a new system. The name is terrible… I would have called it the warm hug of gradual change.
read moreA developer's view of umask
There are a zillion pages explaining how umask works from the user’s point of view, usually with great charts and tables explaining all the bits.
However in all my years I’ve never seen umask explained from the developer’s point of view. What do you provide to
read morecreat()/open()/mkdir()(in C) oros.OpenFile/os.Mkdir/os.MkdirAll(in Go) so that the user’s umask is in control.How to Learn Vi / Vim
A coworker was amazed at my use of Vim, especially that I was able to navigate around files so quickly.
Here’s my advice:
read moreCountries and States I've Visited
In response to a Facebook meme:
The typical American has visited 8 states, many have never been outside of their home state, nor have been outside the country.
read morepost replaced
Thoughts on "Do the Right Thing" (1989)
Thoughts about “Do The Right Thing” (no spoilers)
read moreGo has eliminated most of my off-by-one errors except 0... I mean 1.
Go’s
read morerangeoperator (for x = range foo) has eliminated the most common trap where I make off-by-one errors. The next largest category of off-by-one errors would be eliminated if there was a way to specify the last item in an array. It would also improve a developer’s ability to convey intent.How do Google Captchas help train neural networks
Q: I heard that the Google Captchas are used to train their neural networks so they can identify things like traffic lights, etc. How does this work since our thought process is in our brain?
read moreI Support Ex-Homophobes
You know what I want in the world? I want people that are on the other side of political issues to change their mind. I want them to “see the light”.
read moreBash Env Variable Defaults
In my previous blog post I explained a trick for setting bash env variables when you run a script. In this post I discuss how to write bash scripts that handle such variables properly.
read moreSetting env variables in /bin/bash
If you want to set an env variable in bash for only 1 command, here’s some bad ways to do it:
read moreAll I Do Is Play With Strings
A poem I wrote earlier this year.
read more
