This book, Algorithms to Live By: What Computers Can Teach Us About Solving Human Problems, came to me via Amazon’s recommendation system and sold by being well-reviewed. The book’s premise is simple: take algorithms which are critical in various aspects of computing, explain them, and then connect them to human problems (such as parking, scheduling, […]
Reflections on reading "Algorithms to Live By" Read More »
Something is clearly different about the native prairie. The lighter green color may just be a result of the prairie growth being younger (several months, versus perennial grasses and plants established for many years). The much young prairie also already shows taller plant growth. The partridge peas were blooming this week, and were prettier than
Prairie versus Endemic Read More »
Despite the removal of eight trees and arborvitae in the last two years, my childhood home’s yard is filled with shade. Thus, we have lots of hosta, which my mom had picked up quite a number of varieties of, and is now quite attached to. But, with my parents retiring and moving fully to the
The Great Hosta Evacuation Read More »
I have just finished my first reading of Beowulf. It wasn’t an easy read, even in translation Reading Beowulf was inevitable for me. First brought to my attention in detail by Professor Nicholson in my late Latin class on Bede, it has since been on the periphery of my Early Medieval studies, trips to Denmark,
Kin, Rings, and Feuds: an Unlearned Reading of Beowulf Read More »
For all three people in the world who are really interested (myself and my parents), the Catlin farm’s newly-established weather/sensor database is difficult to understand just by glancing at the 40 columns of numbers. So I made a dashboard in which to look at, in particular, the trifecta of agriculture: rain, temp, and sun for
Live Dashboard of Farm Weather for WordPress.com Read More »
It’s been a year and a half since this computer broke, and it’s been a tedious, intermittent road to recovery. When it was first broken, the screen stopped displaying any information. The computer only worked, occasionally, on an external monitor in safe mode. I suspected a graphics card issue, with the Nvidia driver reporting no
A Computer Fixed, Finally Read More »
When I learned most of what I know about cuttings, it was in Hort 1001: Plant Propogation in a university greenhouse. In addition to being the nicest place on campus in the middle of winter, it was also a perfectly maintained facility. Alas, now I am on my own, and must make my own systems.
Cutting Bed Mist Irrigation System Read More »
You know I love to bake. Especially a nice crunchy graphics card! Nom nom. I was not sure if my graphics card was broken in such a way that baking would help, yet I’ve heard it often does, so I gave it 8 minutes at 385 F to see. The purpose of it is to
Over a year ago, my ASUS G75VW crashed, only working on an external monitor in safe mode. Since then, I’ve been trying to fix it, but in the process, I managed to make it much worse. Now I’m stuck with a motherboard that will turn on, but won’t connect to any monitors. No monitors, no
Frustrations of Fixing a Computer Read More »
I own one of the best gaming laptops you can buy. I have owned it for a year and played less than 10 hours of games on it. Ah well, such is life. But while I currently use the GPU power to run neural nets, it used to be I did play games. Indeed, I
A Civilized Life: An Essay on Growing Up Playing Civilization Read More »
