ilmtitan

Baseball!!!

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 01:29:49 GMT

Yes folks, it's that time again. Time for me to rattle on about something none of you care about. The baseball season is starting again. The birds are chirping, the bats are cracking, and the Cubs fans think their team can win it all.

As usual, I think the Cardinals will outperform expectations, which this year means simply not getting knocked out of the playoff race by the All-Star break. They won their opening series against the Rockies, so they're off to a good start.

Beethoven didn't write it

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 04:55:20 GMT

Listening to NPR as I often do in the car, I heard the start of concert (which I think was part of a music festival with themes of "Beethoven an Russia." The first piece, the announcer explained, was a new work by a Russian arranger/composer who took a look a Beethoven's sketches, his works while they were still being worked on. By using notes crossed off, the announcer explained, the arranger was able to add a modern sound to this old music.

That's modern music for sure, using notes that great composers have already determined were bad 200 years ago.

Great ballgame tonight!

Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:45:18 GMT

I know none of you knows or even cares about this, but here it is. Rick Ankiel was a rookie phenom starting pitcher for the Cardinals back in 2000, when he won 11 games. Then he had some psychological meltdown, and couldn't keep the ball in the strike-zone. Two years ago he quit pitching. Tonight he made his Major League debut as an outfielder, a feat rarely accomplished, although most notable by "The" Babe Ruth and Stan "The Man" Musial. He only went one for four, but that one was a three run homer. It wasn't a game winner or anything, but it is still the mos exciting thing to happen in a Cardinals game this season. They're still 6 games under .500, but only 5.5 games behind the Brewers, 4 in the loss column, 4.5 behind the Cubs, and still control their own destiny. The starting pitching is shaping up, the bullpen has been great all season, and now theres a new spark in the offense. I am SOOO much more excited about their chances than logic dictates.

Checked exceptions in Java

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 04:44:18 GMT

Boring intro:
I realize many of you may no longer care about Java. Jacob is now a Perlaphile, David loves C#. I don't know what most of the rest of you MS folk work in, but I would be willing to bet it's not Java. It is, however, the language I work in, and I'm interested in it's development.

The meat:
I was reading up on possible changes in Java 1.7, when I read this: Removing Language Features?. Anyway, for once I have an opinion I would like to share about checked exceptions.
The idea of a checked exception a not uncommon exception that does not (necessarily) indicate an error in programming and that the program should be able to recover from, and therefor the programmer needs to do something with.

The problem is, unlike the Java implementation, checked exceptions are not a type of exception. They are an exception in a particular context. In a Java implementation of the unix cat command, IOException may not really be something that needs to be handled in a special way.

This person makes one good comment at the end. However, I think going the other way would be better, i.e. making throw and throws what he terms "spit" and "spits", and creating two new keywords to throw exceptions as checked, which I will call chuck and chucks. Chuck and chucks have semantics exactly the same as throw and throws have with checked exceptions, with the additional caveat of being able to simply declare throws on an exception chucked within it, thus making a checked exception unchecked without the need to catch it and wrap it in a RuntimeException.

The only code this change would break would be the standard conflicts with new key words.

4-0

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 07:16:20 GMT

Two more games of setters tonight. Two more wins. If I didn't know me, I might suspect I was cheating.

The first game, I won by a single turn. The guy to go after me had the resources to win had I not.

The second game, I upgraded my two settlements before building anything but a single road connecting them (plus the two initial roads). I almost got boxed in, but was able to get to the coast, and built the longest road using 1 road building development card, a monopoly card for wood, and a year of plenty.

PAX

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 05:31:14 GMT

I registered for PAX today. I don't have plane tickets yet, but I still have plenty of time.

Baseball!!!

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 04:24:52 GMT

Hurray, it's back! The seven month season began today.

Settelers is indeed a fun game! ... or ... I like winning!

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 05:15:38 GMT

I played my first two games of settlers tonight, and I also won my first two games of settlers. The first game was nothing special. I quietly built three cites and two settlements, and then built three roads on one turn to steal the longest road. The second game was a little more interesting (or more recent so that I remember it better). I surrounded a 6 wood tile with two cities and a settlement, with the settlement on a wood port. I also had a city on a 6 brick tile. It hit twice before they could put the bandit there. This got me into a race for the longest road, which would have given me the win. Everyone was trading to keep one guy ahead of me. After exhausting my supplies, I had four ore a wheat, and two sheep, which I used to purchase a development card. It was a monopoly card, and the next turn I used it to call for wheat. With all of the focus on road building, I pulled twelve wheat. I used two and the ore to build a city, and eight to trade in for a brick and a wood, to build a settlement.
I must say, I got a little lucky both games and had enough supplies to build a couple cities fairly early.
Nevertheless fun night.

Snow > Ice

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 05:43:46 GMT

Removing snow just takes a couple of minutes. Removing the quarter inch thick ice that encases my car can take fifteen or more.

Last Baseball post this season, I promise.

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 04:52:20 GMT

THE CARDNIALS WON!!! THEY WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!
They become the second major league, and first national league team to win double diget world series titles. The second team to win a world series in the fist year at a new stadium. The fewest wins of any world series champion. 5'7" David Eckstein is the shortest world series mvp in history. The experts didn't think they had a chance. They weren't supposed to make it out of the first round. No one thought they would win more than two of seven games against the Mets. More people prediced that they would be swept by the Tigers than prediced they would win. The only win the Tigers managed was behind a pitcher who clearly had pine tar on his hand, an illegal substance since before setroids were invented.

World Series!!!

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 04:37:05 GMT

The Cardinals (baseball) won game 7 of the NLCS!! They are going to the Fall Classic. WOHOOO!!!!

this anouncement brought to you by Jim Przybylinski

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 04:17:58 GMT

http://compilers.iecc.com/comparch/article/97-02-111

C++ is only tail recursive in the absence of local variables. This makes me sad.

Spring!!

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 04:45:04 GMT

A new verson of Spring (formerly TASpring) is out, and my name is on the credits!
http://taspring.clan-sy.com
Also, the Cardinals are in the postseason! (Baseball) Hurra!

Life is good.

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 23:17:25 GMT

I was watching the Fantastic Four movie on TV the other day. It wasn't very good. The plot didn't make sense and there was only one real fight scene. After further reflection, I came to a funny conclusion. The plot would have made more sense if there was at least one more fight scene between Dr. Doom and the four.

Moving

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 02:42:17 GMT

As some of you may know, I have accepted a job in Bryan TX, 2h away from both Houston and Austin. I went and found an apartment yesterday and then went furniture shopping. It was a very tiring day. I'll be moving in on the first, unless something strange happens.

I can get a job!!!

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 02:42:40 GMT

I got my first job offer today. A small company an hour north of Houston. The terms are good, but the work does not seem terribly interesting. Still, I'm excited, and happy to know that I can get a job.

The arrival

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 22:01:22 GMT

It is probably not a surprise to most of you that I have had some problems getting some of my work done. By spring break I needed to do some major catchup. It was about that time that I asked my parents to call me every day to help keep me on track. I worked hard over spring break, and have continued to work more than normal since then. But my pace has not been good enough for my parents (read my mom). The frequency of the calls increased to where I didn't want to answer the phone. My mom even commented about the possibility of her coming up here to help me stay focused, an idea I responded to with "no!"
3 days ago, I was only behind by 2 lab reports (as opposed to the half dozen of lab reports and a greater number of homework assignments at spring break). I had written about 2 sentences, but wasn't making any further progress. It was at that point that my worrisome mother decided to drive 1000 miles to sit behind me and make sure I get it done. I found out yesterday, after I had finished one of the reports, and she arrived today.
I know she is here because she loves me and wants to see me graduate and is worried I may not, but I don't want her here, and I don't need her here.

A Better Texas without DeLay

Tue, 04 Apr 2006 11:57:23 GMT

Tom DeLay Plans to Resign From Congress

This means he won't be my congressman anymore. Hurray. But this also means I don't get to vote against him anymore.

Lab report

Wed, 22 Mar 2006 18:01:48 GMT

Although I have taken Lasers twice before, I just finished my first lab report for the class. I have a good feeling about this quarter.

I hate Optics

Thu, 09 Mar 2006 14:41:12 GMT

I now remember why I hate Optics. We are three days into laser systems and applications and we already have 5 functions or parameters, W(z), R(z), ζ(z), depth of focus and q(z), all of which are dependent upon z0 and z only. Additionally, there is W0, which needs only z0 and the wavelength.

Rose

Wed, 01 Mar 2006 04:27:45 GMT

Tomorrow I leave for a two day journey back to Indiana. I am mostly packed. I have done everything I need to to graduate this May. I'm nervous and excited.

Lambda

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 07:01:53 GMT

I ran into this today. http://okmij.org/ftp/c++-digest/#lambda-abstr

Sun, 11 Dec 2005 05:25:59 GMT

I have decided to try to speed run F-Zero. My current best time is 11'03"19 of total race time for the Knight class.

Another Wedding

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 02:40:05 GMT

I just went to another cousin's wedding. That leaves just one more on my dad's side, two more on my mom's side, my brother and me. Not sure why I am telling everyone that. Meh

Exceptions

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 04:40:27 GMT

I feel sheepish. I learned for the first time tonight that C++ has try throw and catch statements.