chrishitchcock.com

slaughterhouse90210: “He was one of those people who stared at...

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:03:00 -0400

“He was one of those people who stared at you with a meaningful smile on their face, as if he was somehow intellectually and spiritually superior, when the fact was he was simply socially inept.”
—Kate Atkinson, Life After Life

"Old age. It’s the only disease, Mr. Thompson, that you don’t look forward to being cured..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:43:53 -0400

“Old age. It’s the only disease, Mr. Thompson, that you don’t look forward to being cured of.”

- Mr. Bernstein, Citizen Kane Quotes on IMDB

(via Dave Winer)

How to create and use BBEdit clippings | Macworld

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:21:42 -0400

How to create and use BBEdit clippings | Macworld:

A clipping lets you easily insert pre-defined bits of text into a document. A clipping can be any length of text, and it can contain placeholders that are swapped out with the corresponding value when you insert the clipping.

Recently I had to create a bunch of register/unregister functions for a C header file that would handle adding and removing a callback. I had about twelve callbacks I had to do this far.

I’ve heard of BBEdit’s clipping functionality but have never done anything with it. This MacWorld article I liked to was a good overview of what they can do.

I created a clipping like this:

extern return_enum myobj_register#CLIPBOARD#(myID id, #CLIPBOARD# callback, void *callbackArg);

extern return_enum myobj_unregister#CLIPBOARD#(myID id, #CLIPBOARD# callback,);#INSERTION#

I then added it to a clippings set called something like “MyProject.h” so that the clipping would be active when I worked on header files.

After restarting BBEdit (it didn’t seem to notice the clipping set until I restarted — may have been user error), I had the clipping available in the clipping palette. Now all I had to do was copy the callback name to the clipboard then go to the point in the file where I want the register/unregister function to be and execute the clipping (via a keystorke or double clicking in the clippings palette) and voilà — I had my register and unregister functions created for me.

"We spend most of our lives convinced we’re the protagonist of the story, but we rarely realize that..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:35:56 -0400

“We spend most of our lives convinced we’re the protagonist of the story, but we rarely realize that we’re just supporting characters in everybody else’s story. Nobody thinks about you as much as you do.”

- Todd VanDerWerff “Man with A Plan” Mad Men recap

"The show, always so adroit about the ways that people try to distract themselves from how their..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 13:29:20 -0400

“The show, always so adroit about the ways that people try to distract themselves from how their lives have ended up in a workplace none of them would have dreamed of turning into a career, grew from inauspicious beginnings as a remake of a British show into one of television’s very greatest series about the twin pulls of the allure of contentment and the desire for fulfillment”

- Todd VanDerWerff, How The Office became one of the greatest television series about the American dream

"There are a few obvious reasons for hops’ status as the darling of craft brewers. Hops’ strong..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:39:47 -0400

“There are a few obvious reasons for hops’ status as the darling of craft brewers. Hops’ strong flavors present a stark contrast to watered-down horse piss, which is how I believe one refers to Bud Light in the common parlance. Maximizing hops is a good way for craft brewers to distinguish their creations from mass-market brands.”

- Adrienne So, Against Hoppy Beer

I love a good hoppy beer. However, they can suck when you are at a festival or a tour and it seems like every brewer is pushing their hoppiest beer on you. It can sometimes ruin your mouth for the rest of time.

Video

Thu, 09 May 2013 09:37:27 -0400

pthread_cancel

Thu, 09 May 2013 09:27:44 -0400

I was using pthread_cancel for the first time on a project at work yesterday.

I followed along in the man pages and made sure that I made the call to pthread_cleanup_push to set the cleanup handler for the thread cancelation event. I then went to compile and got strange errors about all the functions after the pthread_cleanup_push having invalid storage types.

I banged my head on this a bit thinking I made a mistake somewhere. I then took a look at pthreads.h and saw that pthread_cleanup_push was a macro and it had an unclosed curly brace in it. Thinking this odd, I then googled some more and came across this page on QNX’s website about pthread_cleanup_push and noticed in the sample that there was also a pthread_cleanup_pop you have to use at the end of the thread’s main function.

Looking back at pthreads.h, I noticed that pthread_cleanup_pop contained the closing curly brace. I don’t know why I thought it was ok to push something without also doing a pop on it, but I’m not always the sharpest crayon in the box.

Once I added the pthread_cleanup_pop at the end of my thread logic I was able to build without an issue.

"Their plan up in smoke, the producers selected Bob Odenkirk as Michael. When they presented the..."

Fri, 03 May 2013 12:02:00 -0400

“Their plan up in smoke, the producers selected Bob Odenkirk as Michael. When they presented the pilot cast to network executives, Mr. Odenkirk was still in the role. But an NBC insider told Mr. Daniels privately that it was likely that Mr. Carell would become available again once the public saw “Come to Papa.” (It was canceled after four episodes.)”

- One Last Cringe for ‘The Office’ Finale

Bob Odenkirk as Michael Scott? That would have made for an interesting show. Odenkirk did show up again in Season 9 as a Michael Scott doppelgänger so you got to see a bit of what it would have been like. However, Odenkirk was problably playing Micheal Scott as played by Steve Carell.

I wonder what Michael Scott would have ended up like if Odenkirk had a chance to put his fingerprints on the role?

This song really gets me pumped up. This whole album is great.

Thu, 02 May 2013 09:22:00 -0400

This song really gets me pumped up.

This whole album is great.

Audio

Wed, 01 May 2013 08:51:12 -0400

"Left with a dwindling population base and no light rail system with which to connect, the People..."

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 10:13:53 -0400

“Left with a dwindling population base and no light rail system with which to connect, the People Mover lost its original function. The planners went ahead anyway, because a construction contract had already been awarded and the federal funds, which by law could not be used locally for other purposes, had been approved.”

- People Mover in Detroit Seen as Transit Disaster

I found it really interesting to go through and read this bit of history written while the People Mover in Detroit was being built. I didn’t know there were plans for a light rail system to feed into the People Mover. It would have been a lot more useful than it is now.

Via Jalopnik

"I think the answer is we all need a little help, and the coffee’s a little help with..."

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 09:08:24 -0400

““I think the answer is we all need a little help, and the coffee’s a little help with everything — social, energy, don’t know what to do next, don’t know how to start my day, don’t know how to get through this afternoon, don’t know how to stay alert. We want to do a lot of stuff; we’re not in great shape. We didn’t get a good night’s sleep. We’re a little depressed. Coffee solves all these problems in one delightful little cup.””

- Jerry Seinfeld, NPR: So Jerry Seinfeld Called Us To Talk About Coffee

Isolation

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:37:04 -0400

Over the weekend I read this story in the New Yorker about a guy returning to Libya for the first time in decades. In the years since they fled his father was kidnapped and held by Gaddafi in a hellish prison where they were tortured and isolated.

This morning I get to work and see this op-ed from a detainee at Gitmo who has been locked up for 11 years with no charges and no trial.

I don’t know how our country can keep doing this. It doesn’t seem to be any better than what Gaddafi did as a dictator in Libya.

I don’t know why nothing an be done to close down Gitmo and move the people that are there into some judicial process where they can get some sort of closure.

Soon we will draw down our forces in Afghanistan like we did in Iraq, but I imagine these people will still be stuck in Gitmo with no hope for the future.

"Poor people don’t have clutter because they’re too dumb to see the virtue of living simply; they..."

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:04:10 -0400

“Poor people don’t have clutter because they’re too dumb to see the virtue of living simply; they have it to reduce risk. When rich people present the idea that they’ve learned to live lightly as a paradoxical insight, they have the idea of wealth backwards. You can only have that kind of lightness through wealth. If you buy food in bulk, you need a big fridge. If you can’t afford to replace all the appliances in your house, you need several junk drawers. If you can’t afford car repairs, you might need a half-gutted second car of a similar model up on blocks, where certain people will make fun of it and call you trailer trash. Please, if you are rich, stop explaining the idea of freedom from stuff as if it’s a trick that even you have somehow mastered. The only way to own very little and be safe is to be rich.”

- Tupperwolf: Wealth, risk, and stuff (via Vanessa Naylon)

I’d been wanting to write a response to the obnoxious New York Times op ed piece this is referring to, but this pretty much nails it.

(via buzz)

Calculating a CRC16-CCITT in JavaScript.

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:10:55 -0500

Calculating a CRC16-CCITT in JavaScript.:

A gist that shows a quick and dirty way of calculating a CRC16-CCITT CRC in JavaScript. This is defaulted to use an initial seed of 0xFFFF

"Tilting your seat back on an airplane is pure evil. But so is installing seats that recline in the..."

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 14:53:46 -0500

“Tilting your seat back on an airplane is pure evil. But so is installing seats that recline in the first place.”

- Reclining airplane seats are a terrible idea and should be banned. - Slate Magazine [via]

Totally agreed. I never recline. Just on principle.

Reclining your airline seat contributes to a Domino Effect of Bad Human Behavior.

(via merlin)

"In 2003, when the Black Keys were signed to the Mississippi-based record label Fat Possum, the duo..."

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:41:36 -0500

“In 2003, when the Black Keys were signed to the Mississippi-based record label Fat Possum, the duo had turned down an offer of $130,000 from a British mayonnaise company interested in using one of its songs in an ad.”

- The Winners’ History of Rock and Roll Part 7: The Black Keys

Transfer Photos from Motorola VU204

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 11:01:40 -0500

We recently upgraded my mother-in-law’s phone from an old Verizon flip phone to a new Verizon flip phone. I deactivated her old phone before I remembered that she had pictures on that phone I needed to copy off.

I assumed that I could just plug the phone in over USB and copy the pictures off. Turns out that doesn’t work.

After some searching I saw a mention on a forum post that you could transfer the photos via bluetooth. It seemed to be the only thing that would work since the phone was deactivated and you can’t send a picture text.

I paired the phone to my computer and tried to browse the phone to find the pictures. That didn’t work. Instead I had to go through each picture on the phone, then choose “Options->Send->Bluetooth” then select my computer to send the picture to. I then had to say “Yes” each time to say that I really wanted to send the picture to the computer. I then had to accept the transfer each time on my Mac before it would start sending the photo. I had to do this dance for each of the 25 pictures she had on her phone.

It was a hassle, but at least I got the pictures off the phone.

NPR Fresh Air: An 'Autopsy' Of Detroit Finds Resilience In A Struggling City

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 11:33:26 -0500

NPR Fresh Air: An 'Autopsy' Of Detroit Finds Resilience In A Struggling City:

I listened to this on the way into work today. I never connected the name Charlie LeDuff (I’ve seen his name before and read a few of his pieces) with the crazy-haired guy that I see in promos for the local news program.

I had dismissed the guy as a whack job when I saw those promos. However, after listening to this interview, I realized he is a pretty interesting guy and I should probably give him a second chance. I’ll be buying his book.