Menu was a hit. Just like restaurants! How did you do that? Shucks, t’warn’t nuthin’. Y’ jist wrangle up a menu in the Neutra Font, usin’ a consistent 40pt / 25 pt format for yer headers an’ yer items, drop in a dingbat, option-drag it to separate the types of drinks, save to JPG Continue reading By this criterion, I’m a 100% anti-genius
I’d seen some news photos and heard rumors that the Stay at Home Directive in San Antonio had an unexpected side effect: the San Antonio River is clearing up! My wife and I took a a quick trip downtown to See the Elephant, and behold! It ain’t crystal clear, but you can certainly see the junk on the bottom, and how shallow the river is (SA safety tip: If you fall in the San Antonio River and can’t swim, just stand up. Then go take a long hot shower.) The Riverwalk is pretty much deserted and closed for business, with … Continue reading A Riverwalk Outing
…it just keeps byte-ing. All of a sudden, with payroll and government financial systems being stressed, large institutions are desperate to find COBOL programmers. Foolishly, they pensioned off all those crusty old codgers, instead of keeping a few on staff to tinker and optimize and untangle all the old code running payroll and inventory and scheduling and… I made Captain at SAC HQ wrangling a room filled with COBOL programmers back in the late 70’s. Every n00b was given a stack of horribly-written report generators and tasked with (a) making the code beautiful and comprehensible and (b) making it modular … Continue reading Old Software Never Dies…
In San Clemente, sk8rs shovel sand to stick it to the Man. I’d tell the Man where to pound that sand, too. Tip from the Instapundit, which is becoming a hotbed of Re-Open America Revolutionaries. Continue reading In a time of Lockdown, skateboarding is a revolutionary act.
Over at American Digest, Van Der Leun gives us a “view from the trenches” that tells us how to Reopen America: Holding Steady won’t be enough to save us. It won’t be nearly enough. To save ourselves we have to find a way to save that couple’s small restaurant. Their restaurant is one — only one — speck, one spark of a myriad. And those are the sparks, those are the embers that we must somehow tend until we can to free the flames we’ve imprisoned in our lackadaisical lockdown. Fail at that and the automobile food lines at Panda … Continue reading Holding Steady Will Not Sustain Us
Writing in Quanta, Susan D’Agostino has a fascinating interview with the computing-est of all computer scientists, Donald Knuth. Who continues his Everest-like trek up his monumental Art of Computer Programming. This (intrinsically) never-to-be-completed opus to the mathematics and techniques of algorithms was, for many of us, the first introduction to formal analysis of algorithms and Dr. Knuth. But woven into the creation of ACP was the invention of TeX, the world’s most marvelous computer typesetting system. TeX was only supposed to be for my secretary and myself. Phyllis [Astrid Benson Winkler] was a wonderful secretary. She could read my handwriting … Continue reading Oh, and in my spare time, I invented TeX
Captain Tom Moore, HMRA (retired), cooked up the idea of a 100-lap charity fundraiser to celebrate his impending 100th birthday. 100 laps around his garden, with a walker (he IS 99). His goal was £1000 for the NHS. Word got out. Right now he’s raised £13 million. In a just world, Captain Tom’s birthday celebration would be treated with a drop-in visit from the Queen. Tip from the outrageous KdT at Splendid Isolation. Update: Captain Colonel Tom didn’t get a royal visit, just a birthday card. And a call from PM Boris. And a promotion. And TWO flyovers. And raised … Continue reading Captain Tom Shows Us How It’s Done
San Antonios have become chickenistas! Lots of folks are hoping to avoid egg shortages by raising their own chickens. “When we get them in, it’s been a mad dash for the chickens,” said Cathy Sullivan, who works at Strutty’s Feed and Pet Supply store in Spring Branch. “We’ve had shipments of 300 to 350 per week, and everything is getting sold.” Turns out San Antonio was ahead of the curve in urban survivalist planning: The new zeal for backyard flocks comes at a good time here. San Antonio raised the limit of birds per household in the city limits from … Continue reading WuFlu and the Urban Chicken Movement
WuFlu isn’t the only virus in the air; I’ve been getting a lot of chatter and questions about slide rules. Yes, partly because I’m old enough to remember them and remember (vaguely) how to use them. But what’s going on? Never mind. Here’s some great online resources for the curious and really curious History and tutorial in a set of…slides More of the same, in standard boring format, from Wikipedia An MIT student breaks it down for the mathematically inclined A More Complete Slide Rule Tutorial for the n00bs An astonishing gallery of slide rule emulators, like drinking from a … Continue reading Slide Rules!
Mexicans (and their Tex-Mexican cousins) can always turn tragedy into hilarity. Check out these coronavirus cumbias: + Mr Cumbia does a great mash-up Grupo EL CAPI does a straight-up band performance with social distancing Ricardo Munoz does another over-the-top mash-up at ChinoVlogs Erik Arturo and buds ham it up to Mr Cumbia’s soundtrack My fave: Mexican health professionals showing how it’s done (handwashing si, cumbia, no) Continue reading Coronavirus Cumbia
The Home for Wayward Statisticians 