Funny

For all of your super-secret project naming needs:

http://www.codenamegenerator.com/

For the record, my new project is now named “Fuschia Tadpole”.  

As you can see below, I saw someone wearing a t-shirt here at Mix09 that reads, "I’m Not Slacking Off. My Code’s Compiling":

Clearly this guy is not using PowerShell or the DLR!

Few things Wall Streeters love more than a bit of gallows humor.  In that vein:

Christer Ericson in Design patterns are from hell says:

The “Design Patterns” book is one of the worst programming books ever. Yes, really. I’m 100% dead serious when I say that I think it has set (and will continue to set) the progress of software development back by decades. Why?! Let me offer up a parable; I will call it “The Plank.”

Building sophisticated educational tools out of cheap parts, Johnny Lee demos his cool Wii Remote hacks, which turn the $40 video game controller into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer.

to read more about Johnny Lee, visit his website

From this piece. In addition to their customary symbolic $1 salary:

Each founder received a bonus of $1,723, for a total of $1,724.

Weird.

Check out the reviews of Tuscan Whole Milk and Bic Pens on Amazon.

(via Andrew)

A bit of light relief for my friends in the industry who might be feeling a bit down these days.

Sub prime crisis explained

From Yahoo! Finance article here (bolding mine):

Rieva Lesonsky, co-author of "Start Your Own Business," and senior vice president and editorial director at Entrepreneur magazine:
Lesonsky’s best advice "was from the owner of our magazine, Peter Shea," she recalls. "He said, ‘Housing prices have gone up — get a second mortgage and pay off your debt.’ I did, and I’m debt-free."

Remind me never to read Entrepreneur Magazine.

I just got back from Iceland, which is an amazing country. While there, I discovered an interesting culinary habit, which I thought also has some metaphorical relevance to corporate software development. One of the traditional dishes in Iceland is hakarl, or ‘Putrid Shark’. It is exactly what it sounds like. One of the traditional drinks is brennivin, also known as ‘Black Death’. While brennivin is quite foul tasting, it does have one judicious use. It can be used to wash down the awful taste of putrid shark. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to consider what Black Death they are using as a chaser for what Putrid Shark

Loyal readers may recall that Lab49 sponsored Wiimbledon this past weekend.

The place was flooded with media attention and the event itself was quite fun and lighthearted. Here are a few stories from around the ‘net covering the event (and featuring yours truly):

MTV Overdrive
ABC World News Tonight
NYTimes BITS Blog entry

Here are my Flickr photos from the event.

Optimization tips

[via donncha]

Disclaimer: What follows is pure unadulterated frivolity. If you have serious work to do then ignore this post!

Suppose God awoke you one night as you slumbered on your keyboard (having collapsed in exhaustion from another all night coding session). God spoketh, “I am angry with you programmers for daring to out do my stunt at the tower of Babel! How dare you invent 10 times more (programming) languages than I did on that day! As your punishment for your great hubris I am imposing an inverse-Babel on your unholy profession. From this day onward for the next 40 years there shalt be only ONE programming language. I commandeth you to picketh which one that language shall be!”  Read more...

I was sat with my colleague Alex Vandenberg today, and I spotted a “book” to his side.  I call it a book, but it wasnt really.  Reality is, when I went to lift the book off the table, I actually slipped a disc.  In fact, on my second attempt, sweat pouring, blood vessels almost ready to burst, I did manage to lift the book using the classic clean and jerk, and what a jerk a felt when I slipped my other disc.  Read more...

If you received the following request from an anonymous web visitor, how would you respond?

Please compose and record a song extolling the virtues of your Web site in which the lengths of the words can also be used as a mnemonic for at least the first 50 digits of pi. In other words, the first word has three letters, the second word one letter, the third word four letters, and so on.

Well Andrew, from Songs to Wear Pants To received just such a request. His response, entitled “I Am The First Fifty Digits of Pi“, is a tour-de-force of clever, silly and creative songwriting.

Bucketing, buckety, bucketed – they’re all the rage:

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2007/03/wsj_teaches_kids_new_slang.html

“Bucketing – it’s not just for vega anymore!”

Loyal readers may have noticed that we recently incorporated a ClustrMap into the blog, over there on the upper right corner. I was looking it over this morning and for the most part I understand it: lots of views in New York where the company was founded; Texas, home to Corpus (our parent company); London, our newest office location; etc.

However one spot in particular struck me as fairly anomalous. Let me zoom in on it for a closer look:

What’s that dot sitting there off the east coast of Africa? Who are you, o reader, out there in the middle of the Indian ocean?

Darren alerted me to what has to be one of the more whimsical programming guides around… Check out The Poignant Guide To Ruby. Apparently the recommended consumption methodology is to “read it leisurely in your housecoat”, but given its generally psychoactive tone, I would imagine it is quite amenable to variations…

Visual Studio was particularly moody today while I was trying to debug an MS Excel add-in project. After it ran out of ways to get in my way, it gave me this:

Visual Studio cannot debug because debug target “C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE” is not an EXE file.

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