rootbeer277's New Writeups

December 3, 2009 (event)

2009-12-04T17:41:41Z

Due to the nature of real-time public chat conversations, the following was cleaned up and rearranged to preserve the intended flow of conversation. The ideas have been maintained as originally presented. The original version can be read in Ascorbic's archive for 2009-12-03 at 18:00.

18:18: rootbeer277: I just can't appreciate Woody Allen. I've seen what I believe is a representative sample of his work but I just don't find them entertaining.
18:19: kthejoker: Well you're a fairly humorless man, so color me unsurprised.
18:19: rootbeer277: That's an entirely baseless accusation.
18:19: rootbeer277: Aardvark, am I humorless?
18:20: rootbeer277: Aardvark is taking too long to answer. This can't be good.
18:20: kthejoker: I just don't imagine you getting caught up in the zaniness of a Woody Allen comedy. Do you like The Muppet Show?
18:21: rootbeer277: I love the Muppet Show, except when they…

Release early, release often (essay)

2009-12-01T19:13:58Z

In an open-source development community, the "release early, release often" philosophy has many advantages. Your users are also bug testers, co-developers, and quality assurance techs. They can not only report bugs, but also peruse the code itself for its possible causes and write their own patches to recommend fixes. This takes the most time-consuming and tricky part of code development from the hands of the dedicated originators and distributes it over a much larger group of amateurs and hobbyists, who can often quickly identify and correct problems (and actually enjoy doing so). For open-source projects, this method works very well. It has become quite common for download pages to include both a potentially buggy, developmental release, and also the last known stable release of a program. People who just want to use the program can download the stable one, and people who want to be involved with the bug-testing and development can download the development version.

…

megapixel (idea)

2009-11-29T21:09:56Z

A megapixel is a unit of measurement for the resolution of digital cameras. Higher megapixel counts are the primary marketing indicator of a higher-quality digital camera. One megapixel is equal to one million pixels. This is about 25% better than 1024x768, a popular screen resolution for computer displays. The ever-increasing resolution on consumer digital cameras is primarily driven by small and smaller charged coupled device arrays getting smaller and cheaper to produce.

Today's average digital cameras typically boast a resolution of over 10 megapixels and can cost under US$150. This is enormously more resolution than the average family vacation photographer needs, and was just a few years ago only available in high-end professional digital cameras. A 1 MP camera easily has enough resolution to display pictures on a computer, the primary advantage to higher resolutions is for printing them. I find that as a rule of thumb, for each megapixel of resolution,…

iPhone 3G (review)

2009-11-29T17:47:49Z

In September of 2007, I reviewed Apple's iPhone classic. Although it was a beautiful piece of electronics by any standard, it didn't have the expansive software library I'd come to rely on in my Palm Treo. It was with a heavy heart that I returned it to AT&T and went back to my loyal Swiss Army Knife.

Come July of 2008, I tried again with Apple's new iPhone 3G. The 3G has a number of upgrades over the classic version, most importantly the iTunes App Store. It was a whole new experience. The iPhone 3G took everything that was great about the original (covered in my original review, so I won't repeat them here), patched up a few oversights, and fixed almost everything that was lacking. When version 3.0 of the software was released, the iPhone could even finally copy and paste! This feature was long overdue. The iPhone proved itself to be every bit the workhorse my Palm Treo was, but sleeker, faster, and, yes I'll…

Cripple Mr Onion (thing)

2009-11-28T05:39:37Z

Cripple Mr. Onion is a fictional card game mentioned in several of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. Although it gets mention in a number of them, it's only actually played for the reader aboard a riverboat in Witches Abroad. During a journey undertaken by the witches Magrat Garlick, Nanny Ogg, and Granny Weatherwax (forming the standard maiden, mother, and crone trio), Nanny loses their traveling money to a gang of hustlers playing Cripple Mr. Onion. Granny Weatherwax decides to hustle the hustlers and win their money back, in her own unique manner. It's during this sequence that we get our best, indeed our only, look at the game.

Resolving not to use magic (Cheatin's all right. That's practic'ly fair. I mean, anyone can cheat. But using magic — well, it's tempting Fate), Granny uses the principles she calls "headology" to distract, annoy, and agitate the card sharps to prevent them…

Project Steve (idea)

2009-11-28T02:28:52Z

Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools.
Project Steve's official statement

Project Steve is a tongue-in-cheek response to creationist claims that evolution is a "theory in crisis". Directly, it riffs on the…