Category: Blog

Non-random coincidences

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April 4 is the feast day of Saint Isidore of Seville, the patron saint of computers in general and of the Internet in particular. He was made the patron of the Internet not only because he wrote an encyclopedia in which he anticipated hypertext links (and in which much of the information was utter nonsense and completely false, just like on the Internet), but also because his feast day is April 4 — 4.04, the “favorite” response code of Internet surfers.

In light of this information, it is worth recalling that Microsoft Corporation was founded on April 4.

On the Czech language

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  • I started learning Czech 🇨🇿 on Duolingo.
  • I discovered that it has four genders (masculine animate, masculine inanimate, feminine, and neuter).
  • I discovered that it has seven cases, and that the accusative differs for animate and inanimate nouns.
  • I discovered that it has fourteen types of declension.
  • I discovered that literary Czech differs from everyday Czech the way literary Arabic differs from spoken Arabic — essentially they are almost two different languages. Duolingo teaches the literary one.
  • In horror, I unsubscribed from the Czech course.

Ergonomics

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Backstory: Five pen holders on the desk, each stuffed to the brim. Each has its own theme: blue pens, fountain pens, colored pens, pencils.

The Idea: Buy one holder with multiple compartments, transfer the best writing instruments of each type into each compartment, put the rest away.

Reality: Six pen holders on the desk.

New Dimensions of Minimalism

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I truly am a great systems programmer. After all, only to the greatest programmers does Windows reveal the shocking truth: in a working computer there isn’t a single file, not a single disk, absolutely nothing. The working computer is actually empty. Ultimate operating system ultimately runs in ultimate nirvana. 😜

A Programmer’s Fears

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When a 12,000-line piece of code written in C++ with C and Assembly suddenly compiles on the first try, it’s at least suspicious. I’m afraid to run it.

Unexpected Metal

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I’m entering the courthouse. I beep at the metal detector. The guards tense up, I empty my pockets. Still beeping. I take off my glasses, my pen, my Bluetooth headset. Still beeping. In deep thought, I show the guards my belt buckle and my phone case with magnetic clasps. The guards inspect the belt suspiciously and finally let me through.

In the elevator, while stuffing my belongings back into my pockets, I discover — behind the phone case on my belt — a folding knife of “anti-dinosaur” size, which I’d forgotten to leave at home…