My Hexodoku Programming Contest is live: the challenge is to generate 16 x 16 Sudoku grids. If multiple entries can consistently beat 1 second, the winner will be the program with best Big O behavior as the order of the grid scales (4\^4, 5\^4, 6\^4, etc.). The …

Hawaii doesn't have "Daylight Savings Time." In the winter, we're 2 hours behind the West Coast and I work from 7 AM to 3 PM in an attempt to make my location as little of an issue as possible. In the summer, we're 3 hours behind. So I have to …

Just got the April 25th edition of PC Mag via Zinio. They've done a redesign and boy, do I not like it. Much more consumerist, big photos, second-class text. Automotive coverage is now a big thing with them: not only do they have a column, but this issue is some …

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Some friends took us fishing yesterday and we hooked up 32 pounds of Acanthocybium solandri aka wahoo aka ono. "Ono" is the Hawaiian word for "delicious." It's one of my favorite fishes, but I think I'm going to get tired of it in the coming weeks!

P.S. Troll …

Microsoft is looking for a developer whose "first task will be to drive the exploration of other dynamic languages such as Ruby and JavaScript on the CLR". Dang. If only they allowed people to work remotely...

Rob Bushway data-mined the buzz about Origami to reveal that a lot of Tablet PC users don't carry their existing Tablets around as much as they might claim. It's a good catch. I have 3 Tablets (how ridiculous is that?) and have to admit in all honesty that somewhere over …

I have had a problem with dasBlog by which the first load of a page on this site (via permalinks) would serve up a 404, but if you refreshed, you'd get the page. The solution appears to be at hand: by turning off the Movable Type blacklist in the configuration …

So first a writer in Australia says that "Up to 60% of the code in the new consumer version of Microsoft new Vista operating system is set to be rewritten," and the blogosphere goes crazy. Then Scoble wigs out\< ?xml:namespace prefix = o /> and says:

1. It's not true;
2. It's absurd …

::: {.Section1} [Ted Neward also laments the lack of LISP-style macros in mainstream programming languages. Damn straight. LISP macros allow you to extend the syntax of your programming language. You know how modern IDEs allow you to type 'for' and then hit some key and it expands into a complete for …

Ted Neward argues that "programmers shouldn't fear offshoring."

He has two theses:

• Unlike previous industrial revolutions, the demands in the software industry are such that there'll be plenty of work for all; and
• Best practices seem to indicate that physical proximity is important to software success

I'd like to agree …