I HATE Hardware

The last thing I saw last night was something about "Do not turn off or remove the power cord from your computer" for some no-doubt-critical update. This morning, my desktop doesn't POST. It hangs right at the point the RAM count happens.

Now, I don't think an OS upgrade can …

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Dr. Dobb's Changes

When Software Development was killed, I predicted that Dr. Dobb's wouldn't change markedly. Boy, was I wrong. Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Erickson and Publisher Stan Barnes clearly decided that the time had come to create what is essentially a new magazine: I don't think Dobb's has changed this much since at least …

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"The Core": Worst. Movie. Ever?

One of the cable channels (FX, I think) has been playing "The Core" in medium rotation lately. I've been trying to expose myself to it in small amounts, to inoculate myself and accept it as cheesy "so bad it's good" fun(ref. "The Fast and the Furious": One of my …

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"More use of assembly" -- Dubious prediction

InfoWorld's Tom Yager wrote a column on the benefits of native code, but then went off the deep end with:

Here's a native code prediction that's way under your radar: We'll see more use of assembly language. ...Developers coding for new, controlled deployments can afford to set high requirements that …

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Programming Quantum Computers

When I feel listless, I sometimes try to whet my brain by rubbing it on quantum mechanics, which requires math that's absurdly difficult for a dilettante to understand. For years I've tinkered at implementing a simulator for programming quantum computers and really haven't gotten anywhere. Well, now I can use …

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When Your Nutshell Gets to 1300 Pages...

"Java in a Nutshell" weighs in at 1264 pages. Matt Croyden, sez:

[Y]our programming language just might be complicated when you have trouble telling the difference between its Nutshell book and a telephone book.

[via James Robertson]

This is somewhat unfair, as the bulk of "JiaN" is a library …

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Most Useful UML Diagrams

According to "How UML Is Used," an article in the May 2006 issue of CACM, the UML diagrams that most commonly "provide new info" above-and-beyond use-case narratives are:

  1. Class diagrams
  2. Statechart diagrams
  3. Sequence diagrams

Interestingly, "usage rates are not well explained by how much new information is provided." Statecharts, the …

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Getting Things Done With OneNote 12

::: {style="direction:ltr;margin-top:0in;margin-left:0in;width:5.0305in"} ::: {style="direction:ltr;margin-top:0in;margin-left:0in;width:5.0013in"} Getting Things Done With OneNote 12 :::

::: {style="direction:ltr;margin-top:.0493in;margin-left:0in;width:1.5041in"} Tuesday, July 11, 2006

8:23 AM :::

::: {style="direction:ltr;margin-top:.0722in;margin-left:0in …

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.2% of Patents Earn Out

According to an article in the May 2006 CACM?quoting Peter Drucker, "no more than one in 100 patents earn enough to pay back its development costs and patent fees, and no more than one in 500 recover all its expenses."

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