Author: Doug McCaughan

  • So you want to be a programmer?

    It’s a lot like building a car for someone. You get it working. Spend a bunch of time tuning that engine and just making it purr. You put your heart into painting it perfectly maybe even giving a little extra love. Then the customer takes it and says, “everything is great except the horn doesn’t work at 19mph. Works below 19 mph and above 19 mph but not at 19 mph.” You are left staring at 2 wires and a switch having to figure out how something couldn’t be any more basic has this odd quirk. That’s programming.

  • Shelf Elf

    An elf came down from the pole
    To dance within your walls
    Turning tricks in the night
    Is it devious? Mischievous? Frightful?
    Or a delight?

    The elf rules are simple
    You can look but you cannot touch
    You can tip your elf
    But it won’t change your luck

    The elf when it comes
    Leaves you more frustrated
    Than before it came
    And once the elf is done and gone
    The glitter remains as evidence of your shame.

  • Thank you Internet!

    Thank you Internet! What a glorious time to be alive! OMG you have no idea how much money I would pay to see this as a weekly show. I’m going to watch this on a loop until my eyes bleed.

    https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8aF9AXf/

  • Were there any children or elderly in the movie idiocracy?

    The wife asked this question so I posed it to claude.ai and this was the amazing answer:

    No, there were no children or elderly shown in the 2006 satirical sci-fi movie Idiocracy.

    The movie depicts a dystopian future society populated entirely by young and middle-aged adults who behave in crude, anti-intellectual, and hyper-commercialized ways.

    In the beginning of Idiocracy, the main character Corporal Joe Bauers (played by Luke Wilson) takes part in a military hibernation experiment along with a prostitute named Rita (played by Maya Rudolph). They wake up 500 years later to find that society has become incredibly lazy and stupid.

    The movie shows Bauers and Rita exploring this world of the future where commercialism and instant gratification reign supreme. All the people they encounter appear to be under age 50 or so. No children or elderly people are ever shown or mentioned.

    The underlying message of the film is that higher birth rates among less intelligent people combined with a lack of intellectualism has resulted in this youth-obsessed, crass culture. So the total absence of young kids and senior citizens emphasizes how extreme and monolithic this future society portrayed in Idiocracy has become.

    So in short – no, there is no sign or mention of children or the elderly in the over-the-top fictional world depicted in Mike Judge’s movie. Just an overly consumeristic youth culture run amok.

  • Death comes for the wealthy too

    Charlie Munger dies proving even old men with money cannot avoid death

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-28/charles-munger-who-helped-buffett-build-berkshire-dies-at-99

  • Who am I?

    Does it really matter anymore?

  • Water is evil

    I swear for the number of times I’ve had to rent a plumbing auger I could have bought one.

  • So you want to be a programmer?

    In programming, you do a lot a writing. Probably as much writing as some best selling book authors but your books will never be read per se. Let’s use books as an analogy.

    If you write a program from scratch, you are the author much like Stephen King. You plot and plan the story. You define the characters and their backstories. You write biographies of these characters that will never make it into the book but these details are important. In programming you do much of this same detail of work in project planning, database architecting, creating or choosing a programming framework, meetings and discussions with clients (book publishers) as well as your team, deciding what external resources will be used and so forth. You are Stephen King.

    If you don’t write a program from scratch but instead work to modify a program that someone else wrote, you have to get into the head of that person. Much like if you were going to modify or edit one of Stephen King’s works, you’d have to get into his head, figure out the back stories, and really analyze the writing. With code, you have to figure out what the other programmer was thinking all without the documentation and backstories that were created during their process. You have to become Stephen King.

    The people who use your program or the modified version of someone else’s program do not have to get as intimate with the works. They use it. Or in Stephen King’s case, they read it.

  • Well it’s early

    Who in their right mind schedules vet appointments for 7am?!

  • Some days you just need a new fountain pen

    Woke up this morning thinking, “I need a dedicated fountain pen for red ink.” Now, I have a dedicated fountain pen for red ink. It is a Knox Galileo I bought from Birmingham Pens and is an amazing pen. The nib is great. The weight is perfect. And it writes well. Unfortunately, the ink evaporates from the pen pretty quickly so I basically don’t use it any more.

    I recently purchased a TWSBI Eco as a dedicated pen for my invisible ink. I’m a big fan of the TWSBI Diamond 580 ALs so my expectation was higher than the Eco. Don’t get me wrong. The Eco is a great step up from a Pilot Metropolitan or a Lamy Safari…Hmm.. Perhaps the Eco is on par with the Lamy Safari. You know, right up until this moment I’ve always placed the Pilot Metropolitan and Lamy Safari on the same level as starter pens but honestly I have to put the Lamy Safari on a higher bar. Yes, the Lamy Safari and TWSBI Eco are pretty much in the same class. I probably won’t buy another Eco. But I could see buying a TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with an extra fine nib as a dedicated red pen.

    Now… what should we do about purple?

  • Found my motivation

    I’ve decided to prioritize health and exercise again. Rowed 2000m on a ERG, lifted dumbbells, and meditated. I’m hoping to do some rucking a couple times a week and generally want to see how fit I can make this body.

    I’m planning on making this a come back story that will deserve an 80s esthetic and a personal videographer to document my return to grace. I’ll be an inspiration to a younger generation and help them coalesce into a cohesive team inspired by the old man’s prowess and endurance then I’ll fade into oblivion and the new generation will have the next trilogy of stories but they’ll never quite live up to the legacy. We will stir the entire pot of emotions. It shall be epic and bodacious!