There’s a tree I don’t know how to draw on the Guanella Pass overlook. It’s this one specific tree. I think I should use a clean sheet and have a few gos at it, try a few tricks, and whichever one works the best, put that in the longer, full page sketch.
Lamps
I really think the Leg Lamp from the Christmas Story wasn’t that bad. The mother did the father dirty.
Books
I took all the books I was meaning to read and didn’t, stuck postit notes in place of my bookmarks, and put them away. Some were great books; some were my favorites. Some were distinctly meh, and a few were downright bad. One got returned to the library early. But they’re done. Happy September 10th.
Optimism
In my continuing battle to find some good stuff and not ignore the bad but deprioritize it, I’ve found out that my library is very helpful. They’re really good at getting me the books I want, often the versions and editions I want too. DU, like any university I imagine, can be quite frustrating sometimes, but they also do a lot of things quite well. The library is one.
Now, please excuse me, because The Fundamentals of Digital Logic with Verilog is on my desk, and if I don’t prepare myself before reading it, the excitement could blow my head clean off.
Colorado
Signals and Filters
The signal I’m looking for makes up about 0.1% of the sequence. This isn’t a huge problem, as filtering out the parts of the signal that don’t change and passing the parts that do is what a filter does. Setting up the filters is tricky but solvable. Tricky but solvable means time-consuming, and that’s the issue.
Labor Day
Happy Labor Day, everyone. Celebrate by working!
Programming Language
If you think of programming as writing in the English passive voice, you’re most of the way there.
Most of the rest is A) complaining about the passive voice B) finding other people who also complain about the passive voice C) really just whining D) getting over yourself or E) repeating A-C for a while. The rest rest is semicolons.
A = myfunc(b);
A is myfunced b.
If you really want a big brain moment, a script is one horribly run-on sentence with way too many clauses. Think patent-claim level run-ons.
Most exceptions are fairly straight forward. A lot of operators are imperatives.
A++;
Increment the A.
Pronouns basically don’t exist, but it’s very easy to make up proper names.
Honestly, I really don’t understand why basic computer programming isn’t in the foreign language department. It’s just super picky grammar with a reader that won’t understand/give-any-benefit-of-the-doubt ever.
Starbucks
The reason Starbucks exists is I can sit down, drink a coffee, and do nothing for thirty minutes.
In the US most restaurants have one of two purposes: serve food or serve alcohol. Those are their purposes. You eat, then you get the hell out. Or you have a few beers and sit around. There are fairly few establishments where in the early afternoon I can drink coffee, not beer, and do a little nothing. Sometimes I want to read a book. Sometimes I want to play on my phone outside the apartment. Sometimes I want to sit at a table and space out. I will achieve the Zen of mental absence. At 2 pm I don’t necessarily want a beer, but restaurants are focused on serving food and turning tables.
Coffee shops fill a vacancy, with Starbucks being the leader. People whine about burned beans and overpriced coffee, but those whiners are missing the point. I’m buying an hour of table space in a reasonably quiet facility outside my apartment. The cost of providing that table space is charged in coffee, and comes to three to six bucks a cup. AC, a swept floor, a reasonably comfortable chair: those add up to five-dollar coffee at Starbucks quality. Whatever. That’s the price to sell.
Guanella Pass
Read something on McArthur Binion, artist in Detroit, and what left me the most curious was an off-hand comment that he used to drive taxis to make ends meet.
I am no art buff and make no pretensions of expert criticism. He clearly has a lot going on upstairs. I wonder what taxi driving was like. Was his head full of ideas? Did he compartmentalize? Was every fare two more hours in the studio to accomplish something? Did he zone out and veg, or was it a constant battle of hopes, curiosity, wonder, and irritation?
