We come and we go . . . that’s a thing that I keep in the back of my head . . .
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Tom Wolfe, 1930-2018
Everything that bloggers have done for journalism — and I personally think they’ve done a lot — Wolfe did it first, he did it 30 years earlier, and he did it better. And I think we’re still catching up to him. — Lev Grossman Tom Wolfe had a rare combination of ideas, insight and a virtuosity with language. A lot of writers do well with at most one out of the three. You can read Tom Wolfe quotes all over the web but I include one of my favorites (from The Bonfire of the Vanities) here: Sherman made the terrible discovery that men make about their fathers sooner or later . . . that the man before him was not an aging father but a boy, a boy much like himself, a boy who grew up and had a child of his own and, as best he could, out of… Read more →
Girls With Working Moms Fare Better?
Via LinkedIn: Girls who grow up with working moms are more likely to have careers themselves and to have higher paying jobs in the future, according to a report in Fortune, citing study data. The research found that, “daughters of working mothers in the U.S. make about 23% more than daughters of stay-at-home mothers.” This article is headlined — inaccurately, in my view — Girls with working moms fare better. Shouldn’t the headline stay with the facts and say “Girls with working moms make more money” instead of “Girls with working moms fare better”? “Fare better” seems to reflect an inappropriately narrow obsession with money as the only metric for measuring life outcomes. misrepresents facts to promote an opinion, i.e., “working moms are good for society.” Read more →
The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint. — Charles Peguy
Developers Should Abandon Agile
No matter what framework or method your management thinks they are applying, learn to work this way: Produce running, tested, working, integrated software every two weeks, every week. Build your skills until you can create a new fully operational version every day, twice a day, multiple times a day. Keep the design of that software clean. As it grows, the design will tend to become complex and crufty. Resist and reverse this tendency consciously, refactoring in tiny continuous steps, all the time, so that your rate of progress is as steady and consistent as possible. Use the current increment of software as the foundation for all your conversations with your product leadership and management. Speak in terms of what’s ready to go, and in terms of what they’d like you to do next. This is the development team’s best hope for a reasonable life. By keeping the software always ready… Read more →
Happy Mothers Day!
It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive. — Charles Peguy, Notre Patrie (1905)
All Cars Look the Same
I’m not a car guy but I do miss the days when every car on the road didn’t look like every other car. This occurred to me today as I was driving behind a Maserati that, if not for the Maserati logo, would have been indistinguishable from a Hyundai Sonata. Also, if you Photoshop a BMW grill onto a Kia, you really can’t tell them apart. Read more →
Fact Checking the Fact Checkers
PolitiFact has a article headlined “Donald Trump’s NRA speech, fact-checked”. Here’s a sample: “African-American unemployment has reached another all-time, in history, record low … And the same thing with Hispanic American unemployment, which is also at the lowest level in history — unemployment, lowest level in history. And women’s unemployment — women, many women — is at the lowest level in almost 20 years. Think of that.” The “fact check” starts out like this: As far as the numbers go, Trump is correct. It then goes on for another five paragraphs to say that Barack Obama deserves “at least as much” credit as Trump for low unemployment. That’s a fact check?! Trump didn’t even say anything about who deserves the credit, although the listener is invited to make a favorable inference. Had he added “. . . and I deserve all the credit,” it would be fair in that case… Read more →
Reflecting on Mathematical Techniques
Is Sustainability Sustainable?
We had a Sustainability Fair at work today . . . ironically, sustainability is a topic that I’m not able to sustain an interest in . . . Read more →
Things to Do With an Amputated Limb
I saw a guy in a men’s room today, on his way out, checking himself in the mirror and making a gesture with his hand like he was adjusting his hair, except he was totally bald. Some people, after having a limb amputated, can feel the limb as if it were still there. Does this also happen with hair? If you have a limb amputated, do you get to take it home with you? I’d like to stick my amputated arm up my sleeve and shake hands with people. Think of how great that would be on Halloween: “Have some candy, kid. AAAAAAHHHHHHH! MY ARM!” Read more →
Someone to Love
When you long with all your heart for someone to love you, a madness grows there that shakes all sense from the trees and the water and the earth. And nothing lives for you, except the long deep bitter want. And this is what everyone feels from birth to death. — Denton Welch, Journal, 8 May 1944, 11.15 p.m. Read more →
Spam of the Day
“New drink will make you drop 10 by the end of the month” 10 what? 10 dollars? 10 teeth? 10 friends? 10 IQ points? Read more →
Alfie Evans, 2016-2018
Thank god this could never happen here in the US . . . at least until Bernie Sanders is inaugurated. RIP Alfie Evans We're heartbroken, say the parents of 23-month-old Alfie Evans, as they announce that the toddler died overnight https://t.co/HuaJV9UFIE — BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) April 28, 2018 Read more →
Generic LinkedIn Recommendation
Feel free to use it: When you meet him, he will act upon you, whether you know it or not. What he says or does may seem inconsistent or even incomprehensible to you. But it has its meaning. He does not live entirely in your world. His intuition is that of the rightly guided, and he always works in accordance with the Right Way. He may discomfit you. That will be intended and necessary. He may seem to return good for evil, or evil for good. But what he is really doing is known only to the Few. You may hear that some men oppose him. You will find that few men really do. He is modest and allows you to find out what you have to find out slowly. When you first meet him, he may seem to be very different from you. He is not. He may seem… Read more →
What to Do and What to Have Done
All wisdom can be stated in two lines: What is done for you — allow it to be done. What you must do for yourself — make sure you do it. — Khawwas Read more →
I Wish I Was the Moon
No pills for what I fear
This is crazy
I wish I was the moon tonight
Fish and Whistle
Father forgive us for what we must do You forgive us and we’ll forgive you We’ll forgive each other till we both turn blue And we’ll whistle and go fishing in heaven — John Prine, “Fish and Whistle” Read more →
Competitive Programming: POJ 1426 – Find The Multiple
Description Given a positive integer n, write a program to find out a nonzero multiple m of n whose decimal representation contains only the digits 0 and 1. You may assume that n is not greater than 200 and there is a corresponding m containing no more than 100 decimal digits. Input The input file may contain multiple test cases. Each line contains a value of n (1 <= n <= 200). A line containing a zero terminates the input. Output For each value of n in the input print a line containing the corresponding value of m. The decimal representation of m must not contain more than 100 digits. If there are multiple solutions for a given value of n, any one of them is acceptable. Sample Input 2 6 19 0 Sample Output 10 100100100100100100 111111111111111111 Link to problem Solution below . . . Read more →