… but I still was able to get out for a walk on the Skyway, similar to my route back on Monday of last week. Chilly outside, so I stayed in the Skyway the whole way.
Busy
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Monthly Archives: April 2008
What the user wanted
I received a couple e-mails today about the rewrite of a computer system that I am involved with (not at work). They reminded me of these classic sketches.
Taxes–2nd pass
As I wrote previously, our 2007 tax situation was chaotic. It now looks like we will be getting a record refund from the Feds and paying a record amount to the State. Still, that works out in our favor.
Our son J has a separate tax return, but I am stuck on that, He is getting Social Security Disability payments, but we do not yet have the SSA-1099 for him.
While writing this I realized we have a similar situation for our younger son, Tom. We will be contacting their social worker.
Tartan Day, 2008
We did our part with colgaffneyis for Minnesota’s Tartan Day observance. IMHO, this is a rather artificial celebration, not having any historical precedent. Still, it is harmless, and there are many other such things going around, and it was a chance to do stuff with friends, so I have no problem with it.
Actually, not completely harmless. Four of us carried matchlock muskets, and we fired a couple of blank volleys as a salute at the end of the ceremony. I had a misfire on my second shot, and got a burn in my left palm for my sins And they were my sins: I don’t fire these things often, and I had not reviewed the procedures for loading and firing them any time recently. Black powder is an old explosive, but is still very dangerous, especially with an inherently hazardous device as a matchlock musket.
Lunch hour
I started out from Government Center in the Skyway, but after a short time realized that the weather outside was not bad at all (50oF/10oC and fair), so I went outside and walked southwest along 3rd Ave, around the far side of the Convention Center, then northeast on LaSalle for most of the return trip.
I stopped at the downtown Barnes & Noble before going back to the office. This had the useful result that I was able to look at a few books that had interested me when I read their listings at Amazon.com. A few minutes of browsing convinced me that they were not worth buying after all.
Lunch itself was a bag of raw vegetables at my desk. Fear not that I becoming overly virtuous: I had blue cheese dressing with them. Also, last night Mia made Chicago-style pizza for our dinner.
Gamma
I have read the first seven chapters of Julian Havil’s Gamma, mostly on the bus to and from work (a benefit of public transportation that does not get nearly enough attention, IMHO). It is slow going because I am working through all the mathematical derivations. These are very clearly presented so this is going well, but it still takes time. A couple modern proofs by Paul Erdös left my head spinning, but I have been able to follow (with appropriate awe), the classic results of Leonard Euler. I suppose this is appropriate given my historical interests :-)>
Protected: Closer is not necessarily better
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Linux as Gaeilge — a second look, with some thoughts about keyboards
As I suspected, I could not let go of this. I did some more research on the subject of my
previous post about this. Then I made a slightly different change to the keyboard section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf:
Walking
After too-long a hiatus, I am finally doing something resembling exercise again. Both Monday and today I went out for walks on the downtown Minneapolis skyway system, going from Government Center to the Hyatt Regency on Nicollet Mall and back again. I think it is about two miles on the map, but the twists and turns of the Skyway must lengthen it considerably. I need to get a better measure of the distance I actually cover.
Because of the snowstorm I stayed inside for the entire trip on Monday, but today I ducked outside for a few blocks on the return trip. This was not too bad, even though I did not bring a coat. The cold (41oF/5oC) weather kept me moving fast.
Linux as Gaeilge
Tá mé go maith. (I am well).
Getting fadas (acute accents in Irish) on my Linux systems proved to be simpler than I thought. I altered the keyboard section of /etc/X11/xorg.conf to look like code behind cut
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 