Alec’s blog

software, software accessories, math, nonsense, &c

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Playing music via USB on a Toyota 4Runner
2021 april 04, 2:06p
I recently got myself a 4Runner! It’s very nice, but it doesn’t have a CD player. So, to play music, you have to load it onto a USB drive (or use your phone).
Electric cars are kinda bizarre
2021 march 02, 4:14p
I’ve been thinking a lot about electric cars recently. They are simply not the same as gas cars with different engines. Diesel cars are pretty close, but electric cars are so different.
Spaghetti as a science, 2
2021 february 17, 3:55p
So I just cooked / meal prep’d 6 servings of spaghetti & “meatballs”.
Debian, Hyper-V
2021 february 16, 1:29p
So, progress on the Hyper-V front.
My old MacBook Air SMART Info
2021 february 16, 12:02p
You know, I’ve never really paid much attention to the SMART info / diagnostic stats stored by my hard drive.
Spaghetti as a Science
2021 february 13, 3:09p
I love making spaghetti. I like to think I can make it pretty well, but I’m getting better all the time.
Ubuntu 20.04, Hyper-V, Windows 10 Pro
2021 february 12, 7:51p
Well, it all seems to be working again. After some/much frustration, my linux VM is back in prime condition.
The Expanse
2021 february 07, 6:37a
Man, this show is so good. Watching it for the 2^nd time now.
Function keys
2021 january 17, 12:15p
I wish there were standard function keys, like in every app. I figure this isn’t the current situation because nobody’s hit upon the clear best.
Boolean table programming
2021 january 16, 9:34a
Here’s another take on if statements, though I’m quite partial to early return. It’s kind of a visual programming idea, it’s not real convenient to do this in plaintext.
Steelcase Leap, Steelcase Gesture
2021 january 14, 7:34p
I got a Gesture today. If you don’t know of it, it’s a very nice chair.
Buying a new monitor
2021 january 10, 7:49p
So it’s getting to be the time I need to buy a new monitor.
So, League
2020 november 28, 6:54p
So I started playing League of Legends recently. It’s a fun game.
How often do you need each number?
2020 november 01, 8:54a
Well, I’m buying house numbers, and I notice a really strange distribution to what they include in a pack, leaving me wondering how they reach their implicit conclusion:
Fuel purchases for an IS 300
2020 october 25, 4:40p
If your car has a 17.5 gal tank, how much fuel do you actually buy?
So long, MR2
2020 october 24, 6:55p
Well, I said goodbye to my lil’ MR2 recently.
Prototype loops in Io
2020 october 24, 6:44p
The default nature of Io is that, if you follow the prototypes up from the Lobby, you come back to the Lobby.
Economics of eating pasta
2020 october 23, 6:51p
I certainly have been eating a lot of pasta, so I wonder: is anything cheaper? Or is it expensive, or what?
De Cecco pasta
2020 october 20, 7:38p
De Cecco pasta is surprisingly good, really good. I can’t remember a better pasta.
Pasta shapes to try
2020 october 18, 8:25p
I like my penne and my linguine, but I wonder what other pastas I should try.
Quartz wristwatch accuracy
2020 october 18, 1:54p
I have a quartz watch that I set in 2018 and just reset today, after 2 years of drift.
Io in 10 minutes
2020 october 18, 10:50a
I try (not very well) to explain Io, a small language, a la X in Y minutes, as much as I know anyway
Compact identification via timestamping
2020 october 15, 7:52p
If I really wanted to compact my standard yyyy-mm-dd file.avi notation / nomenclature, how might could I do it?
Clock time calendar
2020 october 14, 8:18p
Why doesn’t anyone / has anyone used base-60 “clock time” beyond the 12/24-hour modulus we usually think about? 59:59:59:59 and so on.
Software versioning I like
2020 october 13, 8:42p
I like semi-annual release cycles. 2020a, 2020b. 2021a, 2021b. Nice, simple. Dates, too.
Five new holidays
2020 october 12, 4:17p
We should get five more holidays.
Pizza combinations
2020 october 10, 6:42p
Long live the 2-topping L / XL.
More interactive compilers
2020 october 10, 1:17p
I sometimes wish software compilers wrote back significant info, directly into the file.
Making sub-8:00
2020 october 03, 4:33p
I made it to sub-8:00! I have never been more proud of a 2 Km pull.
Sustainable outcomes in identity theft
2020 october 02, 4:59p
So news comes out today saying hackers dump personal info on freaking high schoolers in Las Vegas who did nothing but live in a district whose online ops got hacked.
Infix LISP
2020 september 05, 9:12p
Is it possible to have a LISP that doesn’t use strictly prefix (+ x y z) but sometimes (x choose y) infix-style expressions?
Economics of a new credit card
2020 september 05, 8:37p
I got a new credit card offer in the mail today: should I sign up?
Erg steady, progress upon progress
2020 september 05, 6:30p
Wow, I just rowed a 6 Km personal best today, and was shocked to find out my split beat my recent and hard-fought 5 Km personal best.
Human 0-60
2020 september 03, 7:40p
What would it take for a human, like me, to accelerate oneself to 60 mph? AKA 88 feet per second?
Io, a curious language
2020 august 30, 10:57p
I re-learned some Io this past weekend.
18 weeks, 1 Mm
2020 august 30, 10:08p
Well, I did it. I erg’d 1 Mm in 18 weeks.
More metric unit sizes
2020 august 16, 9:34p
I still root for metric prefixes over language-based numbers (kilogram over one thousand grams, even megameter over one thousand kilometers).
Jekyll bash script helper functions
2020 august 14, 4:28p
Same functions as before, but modified slightly.
Bloodborne bosses, ranked
2020 july 28, 11:11a
I’ve now, years after starting, beaten most all of the bosses in Bloodborne.
Replacing the receiver
2020 july 26, 2:05p
My receiver went out the other day. RIP my Pioneer. Seven years, almost.
Fixing the laptop, cost estimates
2020 july 25, 9:35a
My laptop is in dire straits.
2 Mm
2020 july 12, 3:47p
I hit 2 Mm on the erg yesterday. 2,000 Km.
Electric Mini
2020 july 12, 11:32a
Mini is releasing an all-electric car. Interesting.
Upgrading the iPhone 7
2020 july 11, 9:56p
I think it may be time to upgrade my iPhone. The camera is starting to not work sometimes.
Average waffle mix
2020 june 28, 8:57p
I have just one box of Aunt Jemima pancake mix left. It’s time to say goodbye.
Zig, cool stuff
2020 june 24, 3:55p
I watched a couple youtube videos on Zig and I am impressed.
Goldman Sans
2020 june 24, 3:42p
I really like this font.
Safari & font-family
2020 june 22, 7:18p
I don’t quite know what’s changed in Safari since I last used it (Firefox works, well, great), but it doesn’t seem to render many fonts.
Erg workouts, replanned
2020 june 21, 10:28p
I can definitely say I’m more comfortable erging longer pieces (“steady state”).
Erging my first half-marathon
2020 june 21, 6:19p
I did it, yesterday. I erged 21.097 Km in 1:49:51. Woo hoo!
Customizing Jekyll CSS Styling
2020 june 18, 6:33p
I’m not sure if I never knew this, or if I had just forgotten, but I re-learned how Jekyll sets up theme customization.
More progress through volume
2020 june 17, 8:34p
I put down another personal best on the erg today.
Progress through volume
2020 june 13, 5:40p
So I didn’t really mean to, but I set a new 5 Km personal best today.
What even is PHP
2020 june 10, 7:40p
That’s what I’m wondering, these days.
Setting up MediaWiki
2020 june 07, 2:51p
I set up MediaWiki yesterday: it was super easy and it seems super useful!
Would it were so simple: web applications
2020 may 30, 4:03p
I miss the simplicity of web programming, back when performance was not king.
Erg season 2020 ends
2020 april 30, 3:37p
Well, I did it.
Bash tips for Jekyll blogging
2020 april 26, 1:46p
These bash functions are useful so you can just drop into a terminal and hit new-post and basically be off..
Rebooting the blog again
2020 april 24, 7:38p
I kind of miss the default Jekyll theme, and want to uncomplicate my blog setup. Maybe that’s a bad idea.
$100 of groceries
2020 april 24, 7:33p
I went to Kroger today, and I spent almost exactly $100.
Last week of erg season 2020
2020 april 22, 7:25p
Last full week of erg.
End of erg season 2020
2020 april 14, 6:41p
Well, it’s mid-April. All this coronavirus shit is weirding up the whole universe in a horrible way, it would seem, but the erging continues.
Hello World in x64 Assembler
2020 january 03, 6:29p
I should really brush up on this stuff.. this is some old junk I found laying around. I wish I could write assembler as well as I could in 2016. Maybe a resolution for 2020?
Oil Change From Memory
2020 january 03, 12:37p
I did an oil change a couple days ago. I usually get a few steps out of order. I thought I’d try writing down the steps, in order, to see if I could.
Understanding Double Clutching
2020 january 01, 9:25a
I’m coming up to One Year of driving a stickshift.
The Double Progress Bar
2019 december 31, 6:57p
You know what I miss?
Mono CD ripping/burning in OS X
2019 december 31, 2:27p
I know this is The End Of CDs, but here’s a quick rundown on how to rip a CD in OS X, mix the stereo down to mono, then burn it back to a blank CD.
Some Fragrance Ingredients
2019 december 27, 8:27a
Here are some ingredients lists (!?) found on the bottom of cologne boxes:
The Absurdity of English Units
2019 december 27, 7:04a
I think it speaks for itself; some of these are now historical.
Some Fragrances
2019 december 26, 1:08p
Outliers first, favorites last. It might sound bad if I say something smells like soap but none of these are bad, except the first one.
I Hate Content Security Policy
2019 december 26, 8:38a
I’m trying to add MathJax to my site, either via CDN or dumping it in static/ or whatever.
Unicode Fractions
2019 december 25, 6:07p
This is for my reference, helpful when writing down recipes in plain text.
The Average Bundt Cake
2019 december 25, 5:51p
I’ve written down a few recipes for Bundt cakes recently, it’s something I want to try.
Regarding Shoe Sizes
2019 december 24, 11:33a
I don’t really know what to believe when it comes to shoe sizes.
MathJax is So Easy to Install
2019 december 23, 10:12a

(How Easy? So Easy)
Meal Prep Frozen Sandwiches
2019 december 22, 11:16p
I’m a bit slow on the uptake when it comes to meal prep, making food ahead of time.
Web Fonts in 2019
2019 december 22, 7:52p
Web fonts are still the best fonts.
Array Languages Are Hard to Read
2019 december 22, 8:37a
This is not exactly a shocker.
Password Entropy, Part II
2019 november 21, 3:56p
Passwords are, generally speaking, expensive to crack.
Programming the Erg
2019 november 20, 5:17p
This is a post about hitting the buttons on the erg according to certain “cheat codes” to start specific workouts. There’s not much to it.
A Slightly Different Metric
2019 november 18, 12:50p
If we don’t use a metric system based on feet, kilofeet, millifeet, &c, then maybe we could use one based on miles, millimiles, .. ?
Hello Syncthing
2019 november 13, 9:28p
I’m not sure what happened to BT Sync / Resilio Sync / &c, but it’s time for me to try something else. I just can’t get it working on Linux.
Arms-Only Erg
2019 november 06, 4:34p
I ran an experiment, to prove something I’ve heard but never confirmed to what degree:
Writing a GIF by Hand
2019 october 30, 5:50p
Suppose you’ve got a blog.
Enter the Kemper
2019 october 29, 6:32p
I turned on my Kemper Head for the first time today.
Actual Amps Used
2019 october 26, 8:20p
To the best of my knowledge, the following guitarists (all favorites..) used the following amps:
A SQL Statement
2019 october 16, 3:44p
In essence, (and in order)
Halfway to Metric
2019 october 10, 10:18p
I have an idea that will help transition America to the metric system.
Counting in Postgresql
2019 september 26, 4:01p
I have a table numbers (n, ..) that I want to get the count of.
Simple Password Entropy
2019 september 22, 9:44p
Passwords are easy to generate, easy to record.. but still nobody likes 45-character passwords!
Redoing My Content Security Policy
2019 september 22, 12:52p
In my effort to benchmark inlining vs linking the CSS on this blog, I noticed I had errors in my JS console pulling up my blog in production.
CSS Inlining vs Linking
2019 september 19, 10:51p
I like to serve this site in a fast way, not doing anything hugely dumb.
Optimizing CSS readability versus size
2019 september 18, 5:22p
Editing minified source code sucks.
Some Favorite Math Theorems
2019 september 16, 8:58p
These are just nice things to think about. I don’t know why, but some of them are just nice.

Erg Splits Chart

2019 august 26, 10:11a

split	power	1 Km	2 Km	5 Km	6 Km	10 Km
01:50/-	263.0 W	03:40	07:20	18:20	22:00	36:40
01:52/-	249.1 W	03:44	07:28	18:40	22:24	37:20
01:54/-	236.2 W	03:48	07:36	19:00	22:48	38:00
01:56/-	224.2 W	03:52	07:44	19:20	23:12	38:40
01:58/-	213.0 W	03:56	07:52	19:40	23:36	39:20
02:00/-	202.5 W	04:00	08:00	20:00	24:00	40:00
02:02/-	192.7 W	04:04	08:08	20:20	24:24	40:40
02:04/-	183.6 W	04:08	08:16	20:40	24:48	41:20
02:06/-	175.0 W	04:12	08:24	21:00	25:12	42:00
02:08/-	166.9 W	04:16	08:32	21:20	25:36	42:40
02:10/-	159.3 W	04:20	08:40	21:40	26:00	43:20
02:12/-	152.2 W	04:24	08:48	22:00	26:24	44:00
02:14/-	145.5 W	04:28	08:56	22:20	26:48	44:40
02:16/-	139.1 W	04:32	09:04	22:40	27:12	45:20
02:18/-	133.2 W	04:36	09:12	23:00	27:36	46:00
02:20/-	127.6 W	04:40	09:20	23:20	28:00	46:40
02:22/-	122.2 W	04:44	09:28	23:40	28:24	47:20
02:24/-	117.2 W	04:48	09:36	24:00	28:48	48:00
02:26/-	112.5 W	04:52	09:44	24:20	29:12	48:40
02:28/-	108.0 W	04:56	09:52	24:40	29:36	49:20
02:30/-	103.7 W	05:00	10:00	25:00	30:00	50:00
02:32/-	99.7 W	05:04	10:08	25:20	30:24	50:40
02:34/-	95.8 W	05:08	10:16	25:40	30:48	51:20
02:36/-	92.2 W	05:12	10:24	26:00	31:12	52:00
02:38/-	88.7 W	05:16	10:32	26:20	31:36	52:40
02:40/-	85.4 W	05:20	10:40	26:40	32:00	53:20

Ranking Erg Workouts in SQL
2019 august 26, 8:20a
I erg. Not competitively. I’m still kind of a noob.
Books to Finish in 2019
2019 august 22, 7:07p
I’m a pretty bad book finisher!
Thoughts on seximal vs dozenal
2018 june 24, 11:51a
I watched a video yesterday on base-6 aka seximal. It came up on HN.
Excerpt from An Open Letter to Hobbyists
2018 june 04, 4:00p
Oh, how the times change.
Good Things – Async, Await
2018 january 31, 3:00p
Whew! I am just about done writing .then(..) every 12 spaces. Like I think Rolling Stone said, Guitars are out, weird clicking sounds are in.
See Ecks Jay Ess (CxJS)
2018 january 24, 3:00p
I’ll be short. I recently stumbled upon a framework called CxJS.

CxJS is a client-side application framework driven by a server-side endpoint of your choice.
Difference engines
2017 december 23, 3:00p
We are not so different, you and I.
Daylight savings time v2.0
2017 december 22, 3:00p
It is ridiculous that time literally repeats itself every year here in America.
Sports-ification of the news
2017 december 21, 3:00p
Is anyone listening to the news these days? If you close your eyes, you can almost see the scoreboard.
Bamboo
2017 december 08, 3:00p
So I just found out that Atlassian makes this software thing called Bamboo.
What ever happened to F1 .. F12 keys?
2017 december 06, 3:00p
RIP F keys. I never see applications use them any more.
Go slices are three finger data structures
2016 november 21, 3:00p
What Go devs call slices are what I think of as a “three-finger data structure”.
Extended globs in bash
2016 february 02, 8:10p
I learned about extended globbing today, in bash.
Drinking more Elixir
2016 january 17, 9:05p
I’ve been reading & writing more Elixir; a few things caught my attention.
Drinking some Elixir
2016 january 02, 8:15p
I got an Elixir book for Christmas, the one by Dave Thomas.
Filenames suck
2015 december 01, 6:25p
I really like bash scripts. Who doesn’t, right? But as the saying goes, a man’s got to know his limitations. One thing I’ve never liked is how you have to handle filenames on the shell.
Fun with localStorage
2015 november 22, 12:26a
I’ve been reading through the source of SC4, a self-contained crypto web application. It’s like PGP in a .html file.
A body-recursive chunks
2015 november 14, 8:02p
As it turns out, Erlang supports at least one kind of efficient recursion other than tail recursion.
Body & tail recursion in Erlang
2015 november 12, 8:12p
Old habits die hard. Some things can suprise you.
Simple profiling in Erlang
2015 november 09, 6:00p
Over the weekend, I was looking around the lists module for a function that could group a list into pairs or triplets. Either a pairs, triplets, group_by, or chunks function, basically.
Bit twiddling in Erlang
2015 november 07, 7:38p
It’s been a long few months. Lots of traveling, interviewing, moving, & working. Stressful. I’ve been busy, to say the least.
A bit more of React & CoffeeScript
2015 june 30, 11:32p
I want to move past the hello, world example I posted yesterday and show something just a bit larger, the React tutorial.
A bit of React & CoffeeScript
2015 june 29, 7:31p
It’s been a long two weeks; one large project and several interviews have just eaten up tons of my time. I don’t really like traveling; it really wears me out.
Four good talks
2015 june 14, 8:00p
I’ve been sick this past week, spending more time than I expected chewing aspirin and watching talks. I just wanted to recap the ones that stood out.
Fooling around in dozenal
2015 june 11, 7:49p
I wrote a couple small modules for fun recently and wanted to mention them here briefly. I wrote one to calculate ranges of numbers and the other to convert numbers to dozenal, or duodecimal (base-12).
SForest, another random access list
2015 may 25, 3:57p
In a recent post, I discussed the mechanics underlying skew-binary random access lists. In this post, I’ll walk through some code I’ve written to bring the ideas to life with JavaScript.
To edit effortlessly is Sublime
2015 may 23, 1:22p
I use Sublime Text 2 quite a bit. In this post, I’ll talk about the few things I’ve learned about it. Before I jump right in, let me bore you with some backstory.
Skew-binary random access lists
2015 may 19, 7:26p
This is another post on another data structure, the skew-binary random access list. This is perhaps my favorite data structure; I just think it’s ingenious.
Understanding Metalsmith
2015 may 16, 11:40p
Today, I learned a lot more about alternatives to Jekyll. A local developer (thanks, Chris!) pointed me towards assemble.io, an all-Javascript solution. On the other hand, I found Metalsmith.
BForest, a binary random access list
2015 may 14, 9:23p
This is a post on a data structure, the binary random access list. Not the best data structure in the world, but close to one of my favorites.
Ad block, minus minus
2015 may 12, 6:49p
Recently, I updated my /etc/hosts file. I don’t currently use any ad blocking software aside from that.
Long live the shell
2015 may 11, 6:30p
There are few things in this world you can count on like bash.
Creating a skeleton Node.js module with Grunt & Mocha
2015 may 10, 10:30a
It’s easy to make Node modules from scratch.
Grunt, from a newcomer's perspective
2015 may 09, 8:03a
I’ve used Makefiles in the past, but you can’t write Makefiles in JavaScript. I’d rather just write JavaScript if I could; one language is simpler than two.
First Post
2015 may 07, 7:47a
It took me a few days, but I’ve got a barebones blog up.