I started sparse because this was a busy week, but I’ve still got a pretty good amount of reading for you.
- Comparing code layout. Not the code, but the visual arrangement. This could certainly be explored further.
- Schemaverse, a space strategy game implemented entirely within PostgreSQL. (via)
- The Cray 2 Computer System. (pdf, via)
- How to Operate the Apple II Plus. (via)
- “Analog“. (via)
- noTCP. (via)
- My Top 100 Programming, Computer and Science Books: Part One
- distribution, for ASCII histograms. I can think of many times this would have been useful.
- Disinformation Visualisation: How to Lie with Datavis. (via)
- How to pronounce hexadecimal. Not the word itself, but the numbers derived. Don’t actually do this. (via)
- Penrose binning. (via)
- Also, Go by Example. Linked because I like the description for it at the source.
- The Words the Media Industry Prefers. The narrative made me laugh. (via)
Why do you discourage the use of that proposed pronounciation of hexadecimal numbers? As a non-native speaker of English, my notion of weirdness in that respect may differ from yours, but the proposed words don’t sound too bad to me, although I’d propose “chickety” instead of “city” for 0xC0. Conveys a nicer sound to me, since the number of syllables harmonizes better with the other words. Admittedly, I’m also in favour of a proper use of binary prefixes [1] as suggested by several standards bodies to distinguish KB from KiB and so on.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefixes
Given that counting in hexidecimal is relatively rare, and speaking the numbers out loud happens even less, making up new words to express the value doesn’t have much value. In this specific case, the words and prefixes being used make it sound like completely made-up words. The words proposed even are phonetically similar to the same phrases in English that indicate imprecision or deliberately bogus information.
Using phrases like that to anyone not familiar with it – which would be almost everyone on the planet – would give the immediate impression that you are making up names to cover a lack of knowledge. This may be more apparent to a native English speaker.
Now that you mention it, I can see what you mean. Although the words are indeed completely made-up, I can imagine that they might sound like made-up by a child rather than by some scientist to a native speaker’s ear. It’s certainly something I wouldn’t have noticed though, had you not pointed it out.
Exactly – we might say, “What is this interesting new verbal system you have come up with and what are its rules?”, and most anyone else would say, “You are coming up with fake words because you think I’m too dumb to notice.”
Cool brochure for the Cray 2, thanks! Fun to think that you could probably run a dynamic recompilation style emulator (eg qemu) on a current generation phone and still exceed all of its design parameters and peak performance. Saves 195kW into the bargain. That isn’t even considering the GPU.