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• Technology

• Phi on You! Phi on You All!

  The Vista machine I've been using in the guestroom of our little getaway house in the Catskills died last week of motherboard problems, and as a temporary solution I've switched to my tablet running XP SP2 so I can continue working on my book The Annotated Turing . I plugged my 20" monitor into the tablet's video output, and my beloved Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 v1.0 and my optical wheel mouse into the tablet's two USB ports, so it's almost like I'm using a real machine. Even the decrease in screen resolution from 1600×1200 to 1400×1050 is barely noticeable. Today, however, I noticed a problem. Turing's paper — and mathematical papers in general — make liberal use of the lowercase Greek letter phi. My phi's had turned to boxes, and when I substituted Lucida Sans Unicode for the Times New Roman, I got my phi back but not the phi I wanted, and the one I thought I had. Unicode defines four different codes for phi: Latin small letter phi as part of the International Read More... Posted Thursday, December 27, 2007 10:10 AM from Charles Petzold | 0 Comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• Mozy

  I just got back from a trip to Europe.  I had a great trip in spite of some pretty serious bad luck that involved a failed hard disk and two root canals (yeah, they got the wrong tooth first!).  This got me thinking about backup software (the failed hard drive more than the root canals) [...] Read More... Posted Sunday, November 18, 2007 6:20 PM from notstatic.com | 0 Comments Filed under: Miscellaneous, Technology

• St. Monday

  I've been reading Ben Willson's The Making of Victorian Values: Decency and Dissent in Britain, 1789-1837 and encountered the following passage describing a custom in this era: In trades where laborers were relatively free, where industry was small in scale and out-work was common, Monday was a day off, whatever employers wanted. This custom — called "St. Monday" by those for whom it was a sacrosanct holiday — was to be enjoyed in the alehouse or rowdy sports. The first day of the week would be used for checking machinery, running repairs and administration. Productivity was not ruined by this custom: workers fitted six days' worth of work into the remaining five. (p. 87-8) The "remaining five" working days include Saturday, of course. Saturday only became a day off in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But I suspect St. Monday is still celebrated somewhat by people who prefer a smoother and less jarring entrance into the work week. Read More... Posted Monday, September 24, 2007 7:52 AM from Charles Petzold | 1 Comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• It's Off to Provincetown, MA

  This morning Deirdre and I are driving to Provincetown to spend a few days with Deirdre's Aunt Jane at the cottage she rents every summer. The cottage is on the water and somewhere on this Google map: Provincetown If you're not familiar with the geography of P-Town, you might find it fun to zoom out from the map. It's almost like something from the famous Mandelbrot Set . Aunt Jane doesn't allow any work going on in the cottage, so it might be tough to blog about 3D programming while we're there, but I don't know if I'll be able to resist.... Read More... Posted Wednesday, August 15, 2007 7:20 AM from Charles Petzold | 0 Comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• Happy Groundhog's Day

  This is my groundhog friend 'Chuck' who came out of his hole to wish me a happy birthday today. Read More... Posted Friday, February 02, 2007 11:58 AM from Charles Petzold | 0 Comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• When Green Fuels Go Bad

  There's an interesting article on the front page of the business section in today's New York Times (available online here ) about the use of palm oil to generate power in the Netherlands. Ostensibly, biofuels like palm oil are much preferred to fossil fuels because they are carbon neutral: Plants absorb carbon dioxide when alive and release the same amount when they're used for fuel. But it now seems that the demand for palm oil in Europe became so high that the production of it in Indonesia prompted the clearing of rainforests and other activities that actually increased overall worldwide CO 2 emissions. Because of their production of palm oil, Indonesia is now the world's third leading contributer to atmospheric carbon dioxide. (The U.S. and China rank first and second.) It's a good lesson in the necessity of analyzing the entire chain of energy production rather than just the apparent benefits at the end. Read More... Posted Wednesday, January 31, 2007 9:53 AM from Charles Petzold | 0 Comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• How Fast Do Memes Propagate Through Blogs?

  No idea. But Scott Eric Kaufman, a UC Irvine grad student, is performing a little experiment to find out. He needs every blog in existence to link to this page (which includes instructions): http://acephalous.typepad.com/acephalous/2006/11/measuring_the_s.html Everybody who helps out is guaranteed a delightful warmth in their bosom. Read More... Posted Wednesday, November 29, 2006 8:32 PM from Charles Petzold | 0 Comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• Rory Isn't

  I'm basically a techie. I have no aspirations for punditry. But as a 30-year resident of Greenwich Village, Read More... Posted Saturday, September 30, 2006 10:12 AM from Charles Petzold | 0 Comments Filed under: Miscellaneous

• 29° Makes the N.Y. Times

  “Call it 29 degrees of separation,” begins an article in yesterday’s New York Times . “That's approximately Read More... Posted Monday, July 03, 2006 6:16 PM from Charles Petzold | 0 Comments Filed under: Miscellaneous