ZachWick's comments

The fantastic documentary “We Are As Gods” about Stewart Brand spends a considerable amount of time on this topic as he is involved in many of these efforts.

https://www.weareasgods.film/

Two of these authors are also two of the creators of the Catala programming language, which is "a domain-specific programming language designed for deriving correct-by-construction implementations from legislative texts." (https://catala-lang.org/en/).

Other publications in this area can be found at https://catala-lang.org/en/publications.

APL was originally created by Iverson as a notation used to teach mathematics and only became a programming language able to be executed by a computer around the time that (or shortly after) he published his book _A Programming Language_ [0] in 1962.

Even throwing away the “executable by a computer” part of APL and only considering it as a notation, APL can be powerful. Iverson gave a lecture, which was published as _Notation as a Tool of Thought_ [1] that contains a good discussion of what exactly makes a given notation “good”.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20141027152546/http://www.softwa...

[1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/358896.358899

I tend to use top level folder structure of:

    - Documents
      -- <a folder for each employer>
      -- <a personal folder>
    - Repos
      -- <a folder for each language>

I also make extensive use of a little rust tool I whipped up which tags file paths with user defined tags, which are then searchable: https://gitlab.com/zwick/genie

This allows me to quickly find all file paths that are tagged with <employer #1> for instance regardless of where they are all from within a terminal.

Looks like telegraph commercial codes are poised and ready to make a comeback! (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_code_(communication...)

In previous embedded work, I've had to follow the MISRA C [0] guidelines, which I suspect are roughly similar to the JPL guidelines (but I can't get to the PDF at the moment due to the bad SSL cert).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MISRA_C

I went to a planting a few years ago put on by this same group in Ann Arbor, MI at the Nichols Arboretum [0]. It was pretty inspiring to see a real living clone and hear David Milarch speak about the science and art of cloning these old growth trees. IIRC, the clones planted in Ann Arbor are from one of the Giant Sequoias at [1] in northern MI.

[0] http://sustainability.umich.edu/events/sequoia-planting [1] https://www.michigan.org/property/lake-bluff-bird-sanctuary

The "DIY with basic tools" approach of Sears extended well beyond houses. Sears also sold motorcycles [0] that came with a thick manual that gave instructions on how to do everything from assembling the motorcycle from the shipped pieces in the crate to fully disassembling and rebuilding the engine. I've restored a handful of them before, and they are a lot of fun to work on. They are simple enough that there aren't too many hurdles to get over, and they are always a good conversation starter when you're parked somewhere.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puch_250_SGS

[1] A build log of one restoration that needs updating https://zachwick.com/sears-allstate-project-1-n/

But only for certain a definitions of "problem."

I can only imagine the effect of an interrogation like that on a 14yr old. I was 24 and was completly drained by mine.

I was questioned by each of the TSA, the local sheriff, and the plane's pilot and an airline rep. Three different interrogations all asking the same questions just to determine if I was going to be allowed to fly.

This hits close to home for me too, and I am as WASP-y as it gets.

Just over a year ago I was flying to the middle of US with some prototypes for an agriculural automation system in my checked luggage. Going through DTW and O'Hare to my final destination was fine and went without incident. On my way back, again with a checked luggage bag of protypes and tools, this little airport in northwest IA got evacauted and I was very forcibly questioned about why I was flying with these things.

What struck me was that the larger airports (DTW and O'Hare) couldn't have cared less, but this 5-gate airport in IA freaked out that somebody flying with three laptops in his carryon would also have a bag of tools and equipment.

The best part out of all of this was after everything was cleared up, I asked the head TSA person what I should do in the future to prevent getting searched and interrogated. His answer was "just open your bag and show the luggage agent what is in it." I still don't understand how that would help - I envision that the conversation would go something like "Hi, these look like pipe bombs. They aren't. You can trust me." and I would immediately be detained.

(Edited for formatting)

I teach a programming elective course to middle school students (12-14 years old); We meet three days per week for about an hour each day. Over the course of nine weeks the students come up with a the concept of a simple game, and implement it from scratch in python. Most of the students have never programmed before, although some have created incredibly complex machinations in Minecraft or other creative building games. I try to approach the course as not an introduction to programming but as an introduction to the idea that computers can be more than just consumption devices. There are usually around 6 students in the class (with a much longer wait-list) and invariably there is at least one student who doesn't want to write code. So I try to aim them at designing the game assets (images, music) or coming up with _how_ the game should be played at a high level.

I am not a teacher by education. I do contract development work and have my own bootstrapped start up. I teach because when I look back at my own education, I wish that I had had an opportunity to get away from the mindless drudgery of being "taught to a test." I also teach because I am terrified of a world in which computers (and other electronics) are only seen/used as consumption devices.

I don't think that I am perfect teacher, but I think that this is how all teachers should be; Not someone who has an academic degree in teaching, but someone who has done the actual thing that they are instructing others to do. It is time to dispel the old adage of "those who can, do, and those who can't, teach."

I wonder how "out of date" your Apple product can be and they will still help you with it? I think a trip to my local Apple Store with my trusty Apple ][+ is in order.

Firefox is already non-free software. The Mozilla branding is the main reason why - those parts are licensed under non-free licenses.

You can download a zip archive of all of the issues from here: https://www.copy.com/s/tVBQpAJYGxYSTKw/Readings/Cryptolog

renownedmedia and I are two of the developers of the Copy product. I can assure you that he is not a "PR minion" - he can sling code better than most.

I run the Copy client apps exclusively on GNU/Linux boxes. There is even a handy CLI (command line interface) if GUI's aren't your thing.

Small team (~10) of developers: I rarely encounter merge conflicts due to our method of doling out tasks. We generally try to group tasks together based on similarities, and our codebase is very modular.

Redmine + Gitosis or Gitolite

Redmine has your tickets/issues/milestones, plus gantt charts, wikis, and file storage; Plus it has lots of community written plugins for even more features.

Gitosis or Gitolite are just nice SCM solutions that integrate nicely with Redmine