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R.I.P. Loved Mad mag.
Definition of a burocrate; Delegate, Take Credit, shift blame.
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.1 JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: EventAggregator
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Really enjoyed his MAD magazine contributions, (some of which was far ahead of its times) whatever we could get in India during the 70's and 80's. RIP.
(The article says that his passing happened in April 2023, eleven months ago.)
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I owe my phenomenal success in life to Al Jaffee, Don Martin, Sergio Aragonés, Dave Berg, Antonio Prohías and of course Nick Meglin (initially in charge of "lawsuits") who provided me with inspiration and much needed mental nourishment and food for the soul during the 60s and 70s.
/ravi
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Cp-Coder wrote: RIP Al Jaffee
A tad Leslie, no? 
/ravi
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Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of the Lassie's and Laddie's out there -
Quote: Lá fhéile Pádraig sona duit as gaeilge
May you have all the happiness and luck that life can hold—and at the end of your rainbows may you find a pot of gold.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCSSgxV9qNw
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
modified 17-Mar-24 14:31pm.
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As soon as I saw this title I thought of the Fine Structure Constant, but then I did study postgraduate Nuclear Physics at university.
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I found that my youtube link did not work.
But yes you are correct
"The Fine Structure Constant is one the strangest numbers in all of physics. It’s the job of physicists to worry about numbers, but there’s one number that physicists have stressed about more than any other. That number is 0.00729735256 - approximately 1/137. This is the fine structure constant, and it appears everywhere in our equations of quantum physics, and we’re still trying to figure out why."
(side note: Looking at your background I saw the reference to Algol. I also used Algol many,many moons ago. It was one of the first programming languages I used. Fortran followed as that compiler became available and was class required.
Why Is 1/137 One of the Greatest Unsolved Problems In Physics? - YouTube[^]
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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You see. there is a God. And He's trolling y'all. 
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 God is God.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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The PBS Space Time channel is well worth subscribing to.
I find that I lose much time watching these.
"Mistakes are prevented by Experience. Experience is gained by making mistakes."
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Wordle 1,002 2/6
🟩⬛🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
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Wordle 1,002 5/6*
⬜🟨🟩🟨⬜
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🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
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Not so lucky today!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Wordle 1,002 3/6
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⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜
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In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Wordle 1,002 4/6
⬛⬛🟨⬛⬛
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Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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Wordle 1,002 4/6
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Jeremy Falcon
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Wordle 1,002 2/6*
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Came across this article written by Niklaus Wirth in 1995 that is quite applicable to the state of software today in 2024. Thought I would share it.
"A Plea for Lean Software"
https://cr.yp.to/bib/1995/wirth.pdf[^]
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See, I appreciate this. When I learned to code, half of the job was cramming as much functionality into as little space as you could manage. Bloat was a luxury that few applications could afford. I also was firmly instilled with the notion that software should be as simple as it can be, and no simpler. It may seem like a competing goal, but this actually facilitates making all that functionality work in the first place. If any piece got too big and complicated, the whole thing would fall apart, so simplify simplify simplify. A lot of times a feature is just a matter of exposing existing functionality in the right way.
Since I grew up coding within the constraints of modest time and space requirements of the software that could run on the machines I worked with, I learned to code without lots of frameworks, dependencies and mega-abstractions. I still code that way, whether I like it or not. It's just baked in now. I'm much more comfortable working with small streamlined codebases than I am in codebases where you you have a class, 6 different interfaces, and dependency injection for every task. I'm not judging. I'm just saying what I'm most comfortable with.
I guess that's why I took to embedded for my second act in development. Software got too big maybe? I stopped enjoying it. Embedded on the other hand keeps me solving problems efficiently, and that's what I like to do. 
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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I totally agree.
I'm on my Second Stream now (it's well over 40 years since I left school).
After decades as a hands on CTO at startups I decided to go into embedded systems; which is really what my degree was in. I've maintained this as a hobby, so I'm up to date-ish. However the jobs available weren't fully remote (understandable with some hardware) and were a three hour commute away (on a good day) and paid considerably less than the architecture job I took.
I'm happy enough; I'm in a company way larger than startups so I don't have to do literally everything; but small enough that I can do interesting work, explore new ideas and manage my team with a light touch.
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Was that Mark Twain who ended a long letter to a friend: "I should have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time for that"?
I think that comes in here. There is so much "nice" libraries and free source code, ready to past into your application; you can make something with lots of functionality in a short time. Maybe it would take you three times as much time, maybe ten times, to shave those libraries end source code repositories down to what you really need.
My impression is that very few developers write their own bloated code. They make a simple call here, a simple call there. Their own source code grow by half a dozen lines that pulls in megabytes by megabytes of code written by others. Maybe the developers are still to blame.
I heard (sorry, no URL) that when US and Russians met up in the space station, the Americans proudly showed this ballpoint pen that was developed for the project: You could use it in a weightless environment. It would write under waster. It would work in vacuum outside the space ship. I had cost millions of dollars to develop ... The Russians solved their tasks using a wooden pencil with a traditional graphite core. I think this story bears some resemblance to Wirth's lament.
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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The pencil story is apocryphal, both the US and Russia used pencils in the early days until they both realised that the tips flake and break leaving highly conductive fragments floating round the capsule to damage eyes and equipment depending on what they ran into. And that flammable wood and graphite wasn't a good idea in an area where the fire department can;t get to you easily ... 
In 1967 both the US and Russians standardised on the AG-7 "Anti-Gravity" Space Pen - the company making them gave both sides the same "bulk buy" discount selling them at $2.39 per pen.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Quote: Was that Mark Twain who ended a long letter to a friend: "I should have written you a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time for that"?
Blaise Pascal.
"In testa che avete, Signor di Ceprano?"
-- Rigoletto
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The space pen story is urban legend, sadly - pencils were risky in space with the graphite shavings posing a shorting hazard if they drifted into the wrong bit of circuitry
Both the US and USSR started using pencils in space, but both ended up developing a space pen (or in the US's case, buying them from a private developer at $2.95 per pen)
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