Dead Programmer's Cafe

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  • The Invisible People


  • More Faces of Tilde the Cat


  • ACH! BONJOURRRRRR! You Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys!

    A while back I finished an absolutely amazing book about Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. It’s by Ben Rich and it’s called “Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed“. I’ll write more about that book later.

    Here’s an amusing little anecdote from Lt. Colonel William Burk Jr., an SR-71 Blackbird pilot.

    “In the fall of ’82, I flew from Mildenhall on a mission o Lebanon in response to the Marine barrack bombing. President Reagan ordered photo coverage of ill the terrorist bases in the region. The French refused to allow us to overfly, so our mission was to refuel off the south coast of England.”
    …
    “We completed our pass over Beirut and turned toward Malta, when I got a warning low-oil-pressure light on my right engine. Even though the engine was running fine I slowed down and lowered our altitude and made a direct line for England. We decided to cross France without clearance instead of going the roundabout way. We made it almost across, when I looked out the left window and saw a French Mirage III sitting ten feet off my left wing. He came up on our frequency and asked us for our Diplomatic Clearance Number. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I told him to stand by. I asked my backseater, who said, “Don’t worry about it. I just gave it to him.” What he had given him was “the bird’ with his middle finger. I lit the afterbumers and left that Mirage standing still. Two minutes later, we were crossing the Channel. ”

  • Aye, Mr Starbuck. Ai-ai-ai-ya-i.

    I’ve pretty much settled into a way of working with dead tree books. It works as follows: I carry a pack of tiny little post-its in my pocket. When I find an interesting quote I put a postit on the edge of the page. Later I scan the text of interest to me with my c-pen.
    I’ll be posting interesting snippets in my journal for your amusement.

    Right now I am reading a books about Starbucks Coffee Corp. called “Pour Your Heart into It : How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time“.

    The author, Howard Schultz tells his rags to riches story. He talks about his father not being a good provider when he was little and how he made it big. He puts the emphasis on how he tried to make Starbucks a company that would treat people like his father better. I also have to cringe every time he mentions coffee quality and “romance” of Starbucks stores.

    But sometimes it gets just really hilarious:

    About his wife :
    “Sheri was on the rise in her career, working for an Italian furniture maker as a designer and marketer. She painted our walls light salmon and began to use her professional skills to create a home in our loft-style space. “

    About his friend:
    “We had a great life, A few years later, Harold introduced me to his nephew, a rising jazz saxophonist known as Kenny G. We were two young men, each aspiring to make a mark in different fields, and our friendship grew as we faced similar kinds of challenges. Kenny eventually invested in the business, too, and even played at employee events and per- formed benefit concerts at our plant and market openings. His music became a part of the culture of the company. “

    Also interesting is that William H. Gates II, William H. Gates III’s dad, helped Schultz fight some legal battles.

  • You are Not a Cold Warrior Until You Have One of These

    I was looking for more military silverware and found this:

    Would you like to own a gas mask that belonged to “one of the lt. colonels taking part in hydrogen bomb tests in Nevada in 1951”

    It’s a nice mask.

  • Whatcha Gonna Do?

    Today I had lunch with lj user tonomo at a really cool Cuban cafeteria called “Margon Restaurant“. That place rocks! On our way back asked — where would I go if were to become homeless. Knowing me, I don’t think he was much surprised by the fact that I already gave this question much though.

    One thing for sure – I would not go to a shelter. You see, homeless people don’t go to shelters because those places are very dangerous. It’s very easy to get beaten, robbed and raped at the same time there.

    I guess I would try to raise some “capital” first. said that it would probably be a good strategy to try and look really miserable. But my approach would probably be to drag around some humorous sign. Something classic, like “Tell Me Off for $2” or “Official Sperm Donner – Fill My Cup and I Will Fill Yours”. I would definitely not beg for money in two places – trains and near places where people eat. I would try to pick places where people go for a walk – near Central Park of ferry terminals.

    Having enough money for a subway fare would allow me to ride around in subway cars. In winter it’s a sure way to keep warm at night. I would have to take a lot of cat naps, sleeping for long periods of time would be dangerous. I would try to switch to Uberman’s sleep schedule. I would also spend a lot of time sleeping and reading in libraries. Libraries also have bathrooms (as well as some of the better terminal subway stations).

    Keeping my personal hygiene at a semi-decent level would be hard, especially in winter. I suspect that there are some churches that have showers, which let homeless in. Dunno. That’s a tough one.

    Finding a place to stash my things would be tough.

    There used to be times when homeless could rent a small cubicle in special “hotels” for very small sums of money. There’s an amazing book by my favorite photographer, Harvey Wang, about such places. It’s called “Flophouse: Life on the Bowery“. Well, those places are now gone with gentrification and all.

    Another alternative would be to become one of the Mole People, but I am afraid that after that book came out, all the homeless were kicked out of the tunnels. My favorite chemistry professor, Dr. Hussey, told me once about homeless that lived in the tunnels under Brooklyn College. Those tunnels were secured as well, I believe.

    There is a “Homelessness For Dummies” type book called “Homeless Survival Guide“. The price is a bit steep at $18 though. To the wish list it goes.

    You know, “Clean Underwear from Amazon’s Target Store” is a good suggestion (as always). Not so “Ladybug Rain Boots” and “Helicopter Sleepwear Sets for Baby”.

    In any case, what’s your homelessness strategy?

  • I Am the Lowest of the Low

    I am a fanboy. There are these people on the Internet whose web pages I stalk. I don’t stalk the people themselves, of course. Otherwise I would have been a raging fanboy. And I am not. And never will be. I just read most of the stuff that these people write. And learn things from them.

    Here’s the list (in alphabetical order):

    Philip Greenspun
    site: http://philip.greenspun.com/
    for : for creating an amazing company and for clarity of thinking

    Tom Jennings
    site: http://www.wps.com
    for: his amazing art

    Tema Lebedev
    site: http://www.design.ru http://www.tema.ru
    reason : for creating an amazing company and for clarity of thinking

    Dan Maynes-Aminzade
    site: http://www.monzy.com http://www.monzy.org
    reason: being funny

    Jesse Reclaw
    site: http://www.slowwave.com
    reson: for his amazing dream comics

    Joel Spolsky
    site: http://www.joelonsoftware.com
    reason : for creating an amazing company and for clarity of thinking

    Matthias Wandel
    site: http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/index.html
    reason : for the gadgets that he made

    John C Wright, Esq
    site: http://www.sff.net/people/john-c-wright/index.html
    reason : for proving that there are still good science fiction authors around

    Jamie Zawinski
    site: http://www.jwz.org
    reason: for brilliant use of hypertext

  • Twonky

    Here’s something that my dream reminded me of. “Cat’s eye ” tube.

    When I was little, my dad used to have this huge vacuum tube radio. I think, actually this is it:

    I think that’s what a Twonky would look like.

    I am not sure of the model though, but there it is as I remember it. That was probably the device that introduced me to “radio buttons”. It’s tuning scale was a bit misleading – it was marked with names of different cities that you could supposedly get on the short-wave band. Prague, London, Paris, New York. Riiight.
    It had one very interesting detail – a “cat’s eye” tuning tube.

    “Cat’s eye” is a really amazing device. Basically it’s a tiny little CRT in a vacuum tube. It usually served as a tuning indicator. When you would turn a tuning knob, the pattern displayed on the tube would change. Here’s a more detailed article.

    There were several names these tubes were known under. “Cat’s eye”, “magic eye”, “electronic eye” and just plain “tuning tube”. They were (and still are) a bit pricey, so they usually were included only on high end radios.

    Here are just a few examples of such tubes from this amazing collection:

    Besides being amazingly pretty, IMHO they are actually very user friendly. It’s just that in modern solid state device there is little need for actual “tuning”, but they would make wonderful sound level indicators. It’s a great visual feedback mechanism.

    I am probably saying this just because I am into this whole glowing vacuum tube aesthetic though. Also these tubes make amazing blinkenlights.

  • It’s Story Time

    This kind of reminded me of an incident from my years of work in the service industry. I used to work in a clam bar of Nathan’s Famous at Coney Island. I never sold hot dogs, opening clams was my specialty.

    Anyway, this really drunk guy gets upset over the cost of a half dozen of clams (something to the tune of 12 bucks). But he still wants them. And here’s the twist – he wants them unopened. After asking the manager if it’s ok, I hand over six closed clams. The dude takes a huge Bowie knife and proceeds to try to open them. Of course, he fails at opening even a single one. He puts the knife back in his pocket and lets me open the damn clams for him.

    Another time I learned why pint jars with condiments were to be kept behind the counter. I, seeking to improve usability, put them on the counter during my shift, so that the patrons would not have to ask for them. When I looked away, two bums got into an argument and one of them proceeded to throw a jar full of horseradish sauce and a jar full of cocktail sauce at the other.

    Now here’s another one from my years as a doorman/porter in a Manhattan building. During one of my night shifts somebody stole a huge (probably two meters tall) potted pine. The pine in question was in a heavy bucket that was chained to the wall. That asshole uprooted the whole thing and dragged the tree for at least ten blocks leaving a trail of dirt. The pine was not recovered. I locked the door and was cleaning the lobby at the time, so nobody really blamed me.

  • Vomitorium

    I encounter many lj-users whose posts make me want to vomit in horror. Some just annoy me. Some annoy or horrify me enough to get into a discussion. My belief is that such arguments will better my reasoning skills

    I noticed that , , and read certain journals just for this annoyance or horrification factor. And sometimes their posts bait me into getting involved in pointless debates with other lj users.

    I think I know how to get a bit better at this loosely sport of arguing. A very intelligent friend of mine recommended this book called “Attacking Faulty Reasoning“. It seems very promising.

    Circular reasoning, semantical ambiguity, missing the point, appeal to the gallery, appeal to force or threat, appeal to tradition, distortion, attacking a straw, resort to humor or ridicule. These are just some of the chapters in the book, and I’ve seen most of those in livejournal arguments. Heck, in fact, I am guilty of most of them!