Red Echo

July 21, 2008

mars — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:43:43 +0000

When I got home from work last Monday, the key had fallen out of my bike’s ignition. I turned it off with a screwdriver and spent the week moping. This morning the locksmith showed up, and $175 later I have a new key (and two spares). Vroom. Happy.

The speedometer no longer works. I am not sure whether this is actually a problem.

July 20, 2008

mars — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:42:03 +0000

It is a sunny afternoon. I had nothing particular going on, so I went to City People’s and bought some plants. I trimmed back the big rhododendron next to the driveway and put in another clump of ninebark. A couple pots of miniature daisies will help fill in, if they take hold. Nothing has succeeded there yet, except the dense green groundcover plant whose name I can’t remember, but the weeds are happy enough, so I am going to keep trying different plants until something thrives well enough to crowd the dandelions out.

July 17, 2008

mars — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:56:42 +0000

Mez is in SF. Lesley is in China. Alexis is in Oregon. It is 8:30 in the morning and I am playing Psycraft, loud.

July 14, 2008

mars — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:59:36 +0000

I rode my bike to work today. I sailed by the line of cars inching up the freeway on-ramp, worked my way across to the carpool lane, cranked the throttle, and roared down the highway with a great big grin. So much fun was this ride that I sailed right past my exit - but no matter, it gave me an excuse to noodle around on some Redmond back roads I haven’t seen before.

No matter how much of my time this job sucks up, and how much of my energy it exhausts, now at least I can look forward to a motorcycle ride at the end of the day.

IMG_4886.JPG

mars — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:24:06 +0000

I bought a 1985 Yamaha FJ600 yesterday. This one runs.

July 11, 2008

mars — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:48:22 +0000

Interesting commentary on software testing: it’s titled “Testing is overrated”, but the message is actually more like “testing is complicated and no one strategy will solve all of your problems”.

July 3, 2008

mars — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:15:02 +0000

When designing a sorting API, the comparison function should always be a parameter. The default case is less useful than a casual glance might suggest.

July 2, 2008

mars — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:53:25 +0000

Netsukuku: a self-organizing mesh network, with a decentralized, distributed name binding system. It’s about time…

June 30, 2008

mars — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 03:45:26 +0000

Flexibility is bad design. Indeed. Make it work and ship it. Your users will tell you what you need to improve.

June 30, 2008

mars — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 18:09:48 +0000

We threw a big party this weekend. It was “Heden High”: Stuart U. set up a yearbook photo studio in the basement, a team of cheerleaders did a “happy birthday Lesley” routine, and almost all of the guests came in costume. I was an English teacher, with pipe, tie, and houndstooth jacket, until the heat got to be too much.

I think it was around 8 AM when I finally kicked the last partiers out of my bedroom and went to sleep. It was a good time. I’m tired today.

Back at work, messing around with type unification for imported structs and enums…