Category Archives: Uncategorized

At the end of 2016, I had a 2017 Toyota Corolla loaner car while my own 2011 Toyota Camry was being repaired (a damaged wheel speed sensor from getting stuck in deep snow, which rendered ABS and traction control inoperable). … Continue reading →

Actually, there were four more lines that needed to be edited in codecolorer-core.php to make the CodeColorer plugin work for PHP 7. To make it easier for other people, below is the code in its entirety.

I updated the PHP version that my website uses to PHP 7. I ran into two problems: I had to disable the db-cache-reloaded-fix plugin. I’m not even sure if it did any good anymore. I also ran into an error … Continue reading →

I still have a Samsung Galaxy S4. It’s old and slow, the (second) battery is bad, and the magnetometer is probably completely broken, but at least it doesn’t explode. And it’s paid off. For the last few months, however, I’ve … Continue reading →

For the last five years or so I’ve been using a Dell Zino HD as my media center PC. It’s worked pretty well, but lately, the computer sometimes “forgets” that it has an HDMI port. The TV just goes blank, … Continue reading →

This cocktail worked out pretty well: Madame Toulouse (2 servings) a bit more than 1.5 oz grapefruit vodka 1.5 oz lemon juice 1.5 oz peach simple syrup small drop of honey shake over ice, strain add 3 oz of sparkling … Continue reading →

My current phone, a Samsung Galaxy S4, is now almost 2 years old (just a week shy). For the last six to nine month, battery life has been pretty horrible, and the USB connector also doesn’t work all the time … Continue reading →

I’ve complained a lot about the Google Maps app on Android lately. Offline maps were gone, the nice navigation interface while driving was gone, favorites were gone, simple access to alternate routes was gone, distance measurement via ruler was gone. … Continue reading →

Dr. Moshe Vardi at Rice tweeted a really cool link today: Best Papers vs. Top Cited Papers on Arnetminer. It lists the most-cited papers that were published at one of many conferences, and then also which paper received the “best … Continue reading →

I watched a pre-screening of the movie “Transcendence” today. Some cliches, like wildly flashing and scrolling consoles and computer-generated voices, as well as the somewhat rapid end aside, the movie was well-made and thought-provoking. Below are some thoughts that occurred … Continue reading →

In my last post, I claimed that OneNote for Mac didn’t exist. That’s actually not true. My friend Chris informed me that about two weeks ago, Microsoft released OneNote for Mac. That still doesn’t help me, because OneNote for Mac … Continue reading →

At the end of last week, I turned in my old 3.5 year-old work laptop, my rugged, trusted Lenovo ThinkPad T410. When I started using it at work, I didn’t like it. I was using the MacBook Pro I had … Continue reading →

For most of this year, I have done yoga every day. I still go to my class at the gym, but five to six times a week I do yoga at home using the Daily Yoga Android app. It’s fun, … Continue reading →

Isn’t it weird how readily we eat food that randomly appears at work, even though we have no idea who put it there or where it came from? If I found food outside, I wouldn’t eat it. If food randomly … Continue reading →

I haven’t written in a while. I at least wanted to write about going snowshoeing while attending an avalanche class. I’ll get to it some day. Today I found a website that computes distance between computer scientists. Kind of like … Continue reading →

Mostly out of curiosity, I downloaded the Sleep Time app for Android yesterday. It’s an alarm clock that uses the accelerometer in the phone (which has to be placed on the mattress) to determine one’s sleep phase. Based on that … Continue reading →

In January 2011, I switched from my old Pam Treo 755p to an Android touch screen smartphone. At first I was skeptical about not having a keyboard, but boy, that was the right decision. I’d had the HTC EVO 4G … Continue reading →

At work, every engineer has a pager. Every few weeks, depending on the team, an engineer is on-call and needs to respond quickly in case something breaks in the team’s products. The week ending today was, fortunately, very quiet. There … Continue reading →

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