chrishitchcock.com

indierawk: Stream Metric’s new album, Synthetica. YOU’RE...

Wed, 30 May 2012 13:26:29 -0400

Stream Metric’s new album, Synthetica.

YOU’RE WELCOME, TUMBLR.

I’m giving this a listen now…

“Hey, corporate user of MATLAB, just put in your SMTP...

Fri, 25 May 2012 14:23:22 -0400

“Hey, corporate user of MATLAB, just put in your SMTP server information here and we’ll be happy to let you send an error report to us.

— The Mathworks”

At least I got to see this humorous dialog box on the forth time MATLAB crashed on me today.

Do most “send us an error report” services rely on SMTP?

Is Breaking Bad Season 4 on Netflix?

Fri, 25 May 2012 08:59:37 -0400

Is Breaking Bad Season 4 on Netflix?:

I made a little site called http://isbreakingbadseason4onnetflix.com. It uses python and the Netflix API to check every hour if Breaking Bad season 4 is available to stream on Netflix yet.

Yes, that is right, I still haven’t seen season 4 yet. Yes, I know you can download it from Amazon or iTunes. Yes, I know the DVDs will be out soon. I’d just rather spend $10 and wasting a few hours of my life instead of buying a copy of season 4.

"Fundamentally the entertainment industry put out an RFP (request for proposals) for magic beans. ..."

Mon, 21 May 2012 15:25:13 -0400

“

Fundamentally the entertainment industry put out an RFP (request for proposals) for magic beans. They wanted magic beans that would make computers worse at copying. Anytime you say we have an unlimited budget to spend on magic beans, you will find magic bean vendors.

…

The War on Terror precipitated hundreds of RFPs for magic beans that would automatically detect terrorists or automatically prevent airplanes from being blown up. And lo and behold, there were hundreds of people showing up with magic beans to sell to the military-industrial complex.

”

- Cory Doctrow, Creativity vs Copyright, The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow

I bought this as a DRM-free ebook from PM Press. I had never heard of PM Press before learning about this book from an article over at GeekDad. PM Press has great customer support staff. They responded quickly to me when I had an issue logging into my account. I recommend buying this book through them.

True to the spirit of the essay, it looks like you can’t get this from the Kindle store or the iBookstore. If you wanted to buy if from Amazon, you’d have to get the paperback edition.

I was talking to my doctor down at the hospital He said,...

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:27:00 -0400

I was talking to my doctor down at the hospital

He said, “Son, it says here you’re twenty-seven, But that’s impossible you look like you could be forty-five”

Script to Delete Unconnected Lines in Simulink

Mon, 07 May 2012 09:56:25 -0400

Script to Delete Unconnected Lines in Simulink:

I had a large model that had a dozen S-Functions and subsystems. I was getting a warning that there was an unconnected line in the model, but I couldn’t find it at all.

This script worked great and got rid of the warning.

A few weeks back a co-worker asked me to take a look at the...

Thu, 03 May 2012 09:10:00 -0400

A few weeks back a co-worker asked me to take a look at the description for a course at Oakland University. I used Google to find the course description instead of trying to navigate Oakland’s website. Now I get punished by having to look at ads for Oakland everywhere I go.

It is a good thing I use Bing when I search for Secret Life of an American Teenager fan fiction. Who knows what ads I might be seeing if I would have used Google.

Damn Kids and their Keyboards

Tue, 01 May 2012 10:08:23 -0400

Damn Kids and their Keyboards:

Why all the negativity? It’s loud. It feels great, but the thing sounds like I’m playing the spoons instead of typing. Maybe I have big hands. Maybe I have anger issues. I don’t know. I just know that I prefer a friendly office environment over feeling like Hunter S. Thompson.

I feel the same way about all the recent talk about loud Mac keyboards.

The Fauxtopias of Detroit's Suburbs

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:15:00 -0400

The Fauxtopias of Detroit's Suburbs:

A great post about Greenfield Village and a number of other fake old-time villages in SE Michigan. I didn’t even know all these other historic villages existed in places like Troy and Livonia.

T-Shaped Students at Stanford

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:57:00 -0400

T-Shaped Students at Stanford:

I was reading an article in this week’s New Yorker about Stanford and ran across another mention of T-Shaped people in it:

The goal is to have them become what are called “T-shaped” students, who have depth in a particular field of study but also breadth across multiple disciplines. Stanford hopes that the students can also develop the social skills to collaborate with people outside their areas of expertise

I previously saw this term just a few days ago in Valve’s Employee Handbook. When I saw it in Valve’s handbook I thought it was a term they invented. However, Wikipedia states that the term has been around since 1991.

I really like this concept and have been thinking about how it relates to my skill-set. I’m a pretty good generalist (“jack of all trades - master of none”), but I don’t feel that I have one skill that I would say I’m an expert in. I’m at the point where I need to decide what my area of expertise should be.

Valve Employee Handbook (pdf)

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:27:19 -0400

Valve Employee Handbook (pdf):

This handbook has already been linked to many times on the internet. It is well worth the read. It is full of a lot of things that I wish were in the employee handbooks of the places I worked.

I liked this part about T-Shaped People:

We value “T-shaped” people.

That is, people who are both generalists (highly skilled at a broad set of valuable things—the top of the T) and also experts (among the best in their field within a narrow discipline—the vertical leg of the T).

This recipe is important for success at Valve. We often have to pass on people who are very strong generalists without expertise, or vice versa. An expert who is too narrow has difficulty collaborating. A generalist who doesn’t go deep enough in a single area ends up on the margins, not really contributing as an individual.

Not sure whose dog this is, but this is something Obie does a...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 11:49:00 -0400

Not sure whose dog this is, but this is something Obie does a lot.

This clip from the Office always make me laugh. I wish I could...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:06:11 -0400

This clip from the Office always make me laugh. I wish I could hate someone the way Michael Scott hated Toby.

givemeonegoodreason: lol Harry Crane

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 11:14:33 -0400

givemeonegoodreason:

lol Harry Crane

dansai: The current thing to beat this season on Mad Men: Harry...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 09:25:44 -0400

dansai:

The current thing to beat this season on Mad Men: Harry Crane eating twenty hamburgers.

I was sitting here at work and wondering if anyone had screen-caped the scene of Harry eating sliders in the car yet.

Thank you Tumblr.

"And Jay-Z has never been effusive in his praise of anyone but himself and Memphis Bleek. (Kanye..."

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:25:29 -0400

“And Jay-Z has never been effusive in his praise of anyone but himself and Memphis Bleek. (Kanye West’s entire career can be read as one long attempt to get his professional father figure to finally break down and tell him what a special young man he’s become.)”

- Nathan Rabin, Pissing Off The Parents Case File #11: Lil Wayne’s Rebirth

"To understand how the Republican Party allocates delegates to states, consider Mississippi, which..."

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 14:50:26 -0400

“To understand how the Republican Party allocates delegates to states, consider Mississippi, which gets 40. Fifteen of them are “bonus delegates,” the party noted — nine to reward the state’s heavy Republican vote in the 2008 presidential election, one for having a Republican governor, one for each of the state’s two Republican senators, one for electing a majority of Republicans to the state’s House delegation, and two for controlling both chambers of the Legislature.”

- — Micheal Cooper, Delegate System Gives Small States Outsize Clout at Convention

I always just assumed that delegates were given out by state population size.

theavc: Bryan Cranston says that Breaking Bad will return in...

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:56:47 -0500

theavc:

Bryan Cranston says that Breaking Bad will return in July

Bryan Cranston’s word is bond, son, so probably count on it.

Just tried to come up with some Breaking Bad-themed menu items for a return party, but so far nothing that isn’t unsettling. Maybe pancakes?

I’m setting up my new work laptop today. I always forget...

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 09:33:38 -0500

I’m setting up my new work laptop today.

I always forget where the option is to turn off all the notifications in Outlook. I was just about to google for the answer when I saw the “Advanced E-mail Options” button.

I don’t know why this type of thing is buried three levels deep.

"On a personal note, the word geek in me also likes that “impartial” comes from the same root as..."

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 10:18:54 -0500

“On a personal note, the word geek in me also likes that “impartial” comes from the same root as “party.” It suggests not favoring any side in a dispute. We talk about impartial officials and impartial judges, folks who act without favoring particular people. That’s more solid than “unbiased,” which suggests, more open-endedly, having no prejudices. The majority of guidance in the Handbook concerns how we treat and relate to people. We like that the word “impartial” is solidly grounded in the notion of how we treat and relate to people as well”

- Matt Thompson in PressThink’s article on the new NPR ethics handbook