“Cash for Clunkers” is a wreck

By Jim, on July 31st, 2009%

President Obama and those members of Congress who approved the cash for clunkers program as part of the most recent war funding bill are celebrating today and telling us how they knew that it “would work.” What’s their definition of “working?” Why, that people actually took advantage of it.

Imagine that. You’re going to give . . . → Read More: “Cash for Clunkers” is a wreck

One comment - (Comments are closed)   Idiocy, Rants

Downloading with wget

By Jim, on July 23rd, 2009%

GNU wget is a free program for retrieving files from the Web. I freely admit that I’m just a casual user and don’t know all the things that it can do. But it does one thing that I use quite often: download a list of files. It’s incredibly convenient. All you have to do is . . . → Read More: Downloading with wget

Comments are closed   Computers

Another .NET Framework bug?

By Jim, on July 21st, 2009%

When faced with inexplicable program behavior, inexperienced programmers often blame the operating system, the runtime library, the compiler, or some other external force for the error. Even when they discover that the bug is in their code, these programmers often will try to blame it on something else. A sure sign of maturity in a . . . → Read More: Another .NET Framework bug?

Comments are closed   Programming

“Highly Unlikely” is not the same as “Impossible”

By Jim, on July 18th, 2009%

One of my programs crashed the other day in a very unexpected place: inside the runtime library. The exception stack trace is pretty clear on where the error occurred:

System.OverflowException: Negating the minimum value of a twos complement number is invalid. at System.Math.AbsHelper(Int32 value) at System.Random..ctor(Int32 Seed) at System.Threading.Collections.ConcurrentQueue`1.TryDequeueCore(T& result) at System.Threading.Collections.ConcurrentQueue`1.TryDequeue(T& result) at MyProgram.ThreadProc() . . . → Read More: “Highly Unlikely” is not the same as “Impossible”

3 comments - (Comments are closed)   Programming

Getting attention the new way

By Jim, on July 11th, 2009%

So let’s say that you’re a musician on your way by airplane from Point A to Point C with a stop at Point B. Trusting the airlines to handle your luggage, you check your guitar. While sitting in the airplane at Point B you see the luggage handlers treating your guitar roughly, and when you . . . → Read More: Getting attention the new way

One comment - (Comments are closed)   Internet, Music, Odds 'n Ends

Tribal drum beating

By Jim, on July 4th, 2009%

To summarize a long reply I sent to a mailing list message ranting about the evils of the Obama administration:

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no more an Obama supporter than I was a Bush supporter. The game is rigged, folks. Wake up and stop wasting your energy railing against the current President or passing . . . → Read More: Tribal drum beating

Comments are closed   Rants