rm -r

43 files changed, 5671 deletions(-)

Today was a good day. I love deleting XML parsers more than anything in the whole world.

javac sucks

More evidence that javac is one of the dumbest compilers ever:

public class Foo extends java.lang.Object{
public Foo();
Code:
0:   aload_0
1:   invokespecial   #1; //Method java/lang/Object."":()V
4:   return

public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
Code:
0:   aconst_null
1:   instanceof      #2; //class Foo
4:   ifeq    15
7:   getstatic       #3; //Field java/lang/System.out:Ljava/io/PrintStream;
10:  ldc     #4; //String never!
12:  invokevirtual   #5; //Method java/io/PrintStream.println:(Ljava/lang/String;)V
15:  return
}


Ok, I’ll give them a break — this probably never comes up in a real application.

HFCS Fail

As long as I’ve known about kosher for Passover Coke, I’ve needed it. Coca-cola made with sugar, they said, the way it used to be. I wasn’t sure I believed it existed, but I was hopeful. Last year, I dropped by the KosherMart around Seder time looking for this mythical cola, but all they had was Dr. Brown’s and kosher Diet Coke. “WTF?” I asked the clerk, but he was still unable to help me.

Then, last night I spotted a crate of yellow-capped 2-liters at Giant. “w00t!” I exclaimed, as I snagged a few. Finally, I would be able to answer that age old question: is KFP Coke really better than normal Coke? (I seem to remember from last year that the company line was, “no, you are imagining things. Please go back to enjoying your corn syrup.”)

I’m all about the science, so I had my lovely assistant decant equal amounts of regular and KFP coke into glasses while I was in the other room. Not knowing which was which, I took a sip of each, and selected my favorite.

And the winner is: KFP, easily. They do taste similar enough, but the big difference is in finish. Sucrose has a clean, smooth finish, while HFCS has quite a harsh aftertaste — not Splenda harsh, mind you, but definitely noticeable if you have something to compare it against.

I approve of this religious tradition!

PSA

Don’t believe anything you read on the internet today, especially this post.

Readying for launch

To correct my earlier post, the kite festival is actually tomorrow, March 29, not March 28th. Our final count for # of kites between the two of us is 5. I couldn’t find a spar for #6. (Why do I have 6 kites?) Meanwhile, I still need to finish up my 10-kite rollup bag tonight.

On the programming front, I officially posted OMFS for kernel inclusion as I’m tired of having to make minor changes every time someone updates the VFS api. The #ifdef jungle was getting dense. So far the review hasn’t been overwhelmingly negative, so maybe this will encourage me to flesh out the remaining unimplemented features that the FUSE version has.

Diebold: With a Vengance

If there was any doubt (who am I kidding) that election machine manufacturers are pure evil, check out the nastygram Ed Felten got from Sequoia. Incidentally, my home county election officials are batshit insane on this issue. Notice “[printable]” doesn’t mean “voter verifiable.” Just because they can print from it doesn’t mean they do.

Brute force ftw

I write dumb scripts with git! Here’s how to (slowly / automatically) remove any @SuppressWarnings annotations that don’t do anything:

for i in `grep -rl @SuppressWarnings src` ; do
echo $i
cp $i $i.tmp
grep -v "@SuppressWarnings" $i.tmp > $i
rm $i.tmp
git-commit -a -m "Disable warning suppressions for $i"
ant compile > build.txt

res=`grep "[javac].*error" build.txt || 
grep "[javac].*warning" build.txt`

if [[ ! -z $res ]]; then
echo error!
git-reset --hard HEAD~1
fi
done

cat

I updated my resume today. I’m still not sold on the “Other Experience” section, but on the other hand, I surely learned a lot more doing that stuff than doing the job that pays the bills. It could use a better title at least.

My brother-in-law was visiting this weekend, helping Ange study for an upcoming difficult medicine exam. So I had lots of time to kill. I released a new version of OMFS for kernel 2.6.25, and finished up the man-eating panda kite. (He enjoys human flesh, I assure you.)

And, I welcomed a new tool into the fold: a Steinel temperature controlled heat gun. This is ostensibly for pulling the tile off the wall in my bathroom, but I’m sure I can find additional uses for a hair dryer that hits 1200 degrees. I only got to spend a few minutes testing it on thinset adhesive in my bathroom, but they were an exciting few minutes. I look forward to a day or two of salvaging components from junk PCBs when I next get some free time.

Panda Kite


Panda Kite Applique
Originally uploaded by bluesterror

Here’s my first kite since the Pokemon rok. The Smithsonian kite festival is on March 28 this year, and the theme is “China.” I tried, and more or less failed, to make a kite last year in time for the same event. But here we are a year on and I’ve learned a lot since then.

The hanzis supposedly say ‘China’ in simplified Chinese, but really I’m just guessing. I chose a “small” (3 feet by 4 feet) sail for this one because I wanted to be able to get it mostly done in a day, which I did. It still needs hemming and framing but otherwise it’s ready to go.

With a couple of store-bought kites and four homemade ones, my kite bag is going to be rather full this year, so take that as an invitation to head down to the Mall and fly one for me!