Monochromatic Outlook

4 February 20155 February 2022Opinionated Junk

Monochromatic Outlook employees must wash hands after contact with Washington Post

For the record, I am in favor of handwashing, especially prior to the preparation and/or handling of food.

I’m also good with laws that require restaurants to post signs declaring that employees must wash their hands.

That said, those are not the same two things. Which makes the teaser for the Washington Post article Senator says maybe restaurants shouldn’t make employees wash their hands a falsehood. Frankly, I find it more offensive than any of the remarks attributed to Senator Tillis in … Read the rest

25 January 201526 January 2015Blahg

A kilobyte of comments

by splicerLeave a comment

I’m not sure which fact is more hilarious (or sad): that I have a three-line function with twenty-eight lines of comments, or that the function exists at all.

At some point I was instructed not to use public variables and to create getters and setters for everything. Encapsulation is a good thing, but for values that just need to be accessed it makes just as much sense to make the variable public and not waste a function call to return the … Read the rest

25 January 201525 January 2015Blahg

Apple sneakily thwarts own attempt to serve users

by splicer1 Comment

The headline is misleading, inasmuch as it is difficult to believe that this was either accidental or an attempt to serve users. «Sneakily» is sort of misleading too. «Brilliantly deceptive» fits better. Makes for a really awkward headline, though.

One of the contentious aspects of Apple’s App Store (both the iOS and OS X flavors) is the lack of support for application upgrade paths. This has some short-term customer benefits; for example, app upgrades are usually free. When a developer … Read the rest

20 January 20152 February 2022Blahg

Crowdfunding can be beautiful

by splicerLeave a comment

I’ve seen some interesting kickstarter-style campaigns; it’s always nice to see what kinds of goodies someone will come up with to enroll people in their projects. These kinds of pre-funding drives are an opportunity to get people excited about a project and put on display one’s passion. A dry investment prospectus might get the big backing, but one really has to have a compelling and accessible idea in order to get a lot of people to throw in $10… Read the rest

17 October 201417 October 2014Blahg

5:04

by splicerLeave a comment

If twenty-five years and a day ago you had asked me whether a seismic event measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale would change my life, I am sure the answer would have been «of course.»

Two days later, I would have laughed and said it was silly, that it was just an earthquake. While a little exciting it wasn’t something that changed me. There were other people whose lives were really and directly affected by the Loma Prieta … Read the rest

Another run before the soreness kicks in

After a hard run, or any sufficiently intense workout, I can sometimes be sore for a few days. That’s not uncommon but it is sometimes surprising to me how the soreness doesn’t set in until the second day.

After last Sunday’s run I wasn’t recovered enough to run again until Saturday. Saturday’s run was harder than that one. I was looking at the likelihood that it could be several days before my next run.

Whatever it is that causes my soreness to … Read the rest

The new math: 8.67 miles == 5 kilometers

I have three weekly items in my to-do list which set a rather low bar for my weekly mileage: first is to walk one mile, once per week. A few years ago my doctor prescribed this for me. He told me it was intentionally an easy goal so that I could commit to it and keep my commitment. I added a second recurring task to «walk or run at least two miles», and more recently I added «run at least … Read the rest

Maybe there is something to that «warm-up» thing, after all.

In the past few years I’ve found myself having trouble getting back into the flow of running. When I go out it has been more difficult than it used to be. Perhaps I’m getting older, certainly I’ve fallen out of good training habits, but I’ve only rarely found that «zone» I used to enjoy where I settle in to a pace and feel I can continue indefinitely.

Today’s run was a good deal closer to that than it has been … Read the rest

30 August 201430 August 2014Blahg

I don’t want to pay my PG&E bill

by splicer4 Comments

A little over three months ago there was supposedly a gas leak somewhere in the neighborhood. A Pacific Gas & Electric technician came in to my apartment and turned the gas off, and then over the next couple of weeks there were workers (not from PG&E) around the building. At one point they tore a hole in my bedroom wall and left it there for days.

Eventually an inspector came in and signed off that the system was safely fixed. The … Read the rest

4 July 20145 February 2022Opinionated Junk

Saorsa!

by splicerLeave a comment

As the United States celebrates 238 years of independence from Britain, Scotland is approaching the important decision whether to no longer be a part of the United Kingdom. On the 18^th of September, Scots will go to the polls to vote on a referendum on independence.

I cannot pretend to have enough knowledge of politics in Scotland to know whether becoming a neighbor to rather than a member of the United Kingdom is good for Scotland or good … Read the rest