Admiral
Here’s a statue of Admiral Somebody-or-other, out behind Independence Hall in Philadelphia. I wish I could remember his name. Maybe some Loyal Reader could do a little bit of internet research. I don’t feel like doing it myself (link warning – I did it myself after all).
I missed a couple of days on the old blog. Sadly, I don’t really have an excuse. Wednesday evening, we went to the Santa Clara library (great building, nice collection – especially of computer-related books, friendly people, comfortable chairs, too-small parking lot) and checked out a few books. I went home and started reading immediately and forgot to blog. On Thursday, I tried unsuccessfully to get Knoppix Linux to log on to my wireless network. It couldn’t figure out the password. I then tried to install Cygwin on my machine. It would install but wouldn’t open a terminal window when I tried to open it. Don’t know why not. The fiasco lasted until slightly after midnight, so I forgot to blog again. Sorry about that, Loyal Readers. It must have been a depressing couple of days for you. I’ll try to make it up to you tonight.
Or maybe not. There’s not a lot to report. The fascinating book I started reading on Wednesday is called Linux Application Development. It’s simultaneously interesting and incredibly boring, which is no small trick (link warning – bad rock music). It teaches the reader/programmer how to interact with the fine details of the Linux operating system. I can’t really recommend it to my non-programmer Loyal Readers, but for the programmers among you who are interested in getting started with Linux programming, have a look. It gives a good description of the relevant system calls, has plenty of code snippets, and actually has interesting, meaningful prose to boot. I’m putting it on the book club list, with the above caveats.
Yesterday, one of my many bosses told me there’s another program somewhere around Sunnyvale looking for a software leader. He told them about me and they were asking for a resume. I spiffed an old one up and sent it to him. He dropped by today and told me they called him back and told him they’re very impressed and presumably will want to talk to me. He’s kind of depressed because he’s happy to have me where I am and he hates to lose me. After only three weeks, they’re already fighting over me! Easy boys, just send money.
We’re thinking of going to the Computer Museum tomorrow. It’s right around the corner in Mountain View, and it looks like it might be a fun, although short, visit, since they’re still just getting established after only four years in their present location (it’s taking longer to set up the museum that it did to create all that history in the first place, but far be it from me to criticize) and there are only a few exhibits, including a big room with computers sitting on warehouse shelves. Critical though I may sound, I think it will be a fun place to visit. I’ll let you know.
Otherwise, not much is scheduled for the weekend. Of course, Loyal Reader Number One is leaving for Denver on Sunday afternoon and Loyal Reader Number Two is coming back on Monday, so there will be a lot of preparing over the weekend and a lot of catching up during the coming week. Maybe we’ll find time to make another library run. The one catch at the library here was that on your first visit they only allow you to check out three books. I guess they’re trying to minimize the damage caused by people who get a card with a fake ID and then steal a bunch of books. I didn’t know that was such a serious problem, but I’m learning to expect just about anything weird in Sunny California.
Speaking of sunny, it’s been very hot the last few days. We’re having high temperatures in the 90’s here. My company is part of an industry group that voluntarily cuts back on energy usage on hot days, so they’ve been turning the air conditioning off at 2:00 every day. It gets pretty warm in there by 3:00 or so, but it hasn’t been really miserable so far. They announce the plan a day ahead of time over a PA system in every building on campus (big brother is watching you!), so you can dress appropriately. There have been a lot of shorts, sandals, and hawaiian shirts this week. Of course, with Bay Area hippie software developers, it’s kind of hard to tell the difference. We’re definitely not on the east coast anymore.
Correction on the previous post: the picture was taken by Loyal Reader Number Two, using my camera. Thanks a lot, LRN2!
Gotta go. See you tomorrow.