Finally, another stupid “gadget” that’s worth mentioning here. It’s actually an interesting idea, but the demonstration is horrible. So what is the Waterfryer? It’s a deep fryer that has water under the oil. The result of having the water there is that, since water and oil don’t mix, the oil stays clean because all the food crumbs fall into the water. The water stays clean, and to demonstrate this there’s a fish living there right under the very hot oil. I guess you have to see it to understand. Check out this video. (via Digg)
My Programming Lessons – #2 – Be Paranoid About Your Code
I chose this to be the second lesson because I feel this is one of the things I learned through experience. It’s the basis of many many other lessons.
So what does it mean to be paranoid about your code? While you’re writing code, for some strange reason, you have this false confidence that it will work. It’s false because it’s statistically impossible to write code that works the first time. Consequently, you have to assume that everything you write will fail.
Sometimes a failure is not bad – it depends on what you’re writing. If you’re implementing a word count feature for a document editor and your code causes the editor to crash, then there’s always auto-save that will give the user his latest changes minus the last 2 minutes or so. But if you’re writing the auto-save feature for that same document editor, your feature can ruin big, important documents that belong to clients who will never buy software from you again.
In practice, being paranoid about code means that you should check every return value from every function and exit error situations as gracefully as possible (the optimum being working in a transaction-like manner). Include sanity checks and assertions as much as you can, so that during tests your code will crash early instead of dragging an error to the point where it can’t be found.
Both advices, “crash early” and “anything can fail”, are well known in one form or another. Today they seem obvious to me, but I first read them in a book called “The Pragmatic Programmer”, which is a great read for developers at all levels.
RSS Explained
I mentioned before that I use RSS. These days I use RSS for almost everything I read on the Internet. I use Google Reader, which is very popular and works well, and I almost never go to websites.
Using RSS is easy. It can help you consume a lot of content and keep you updated without having to browse to all your favorite websites. Without RSS it would have been information overload for me a long time ago. Here’s a short video explaining RSS and how to use it. I strongly recommend it to anyone who feels coping with all the information on the Internet is a heavy task.
Apparently, it’s useless inventions and patents day
Today my “fetish” for stupid and useless thing has been satisfied. Here’s why:
- 301 useless facts – they’re definitely useless, but some are interesting.
- Patented bad ideas – like airbag undies… you know… the kind you always wanted.
- The portable grill suitcase – it’s a shame I didn’t see this before independence day.
(via Digg)
A Collection Of Very Nice Desktop Wallpapers
Here’s a quick link to a very nice collection of wallpapers for your desktop. (via Digg)
Don’t call anyone when the daylight-savings time changeover is close
Why, you ask? Why shouldn’t I make phone calls very close to when the clock leaps one hour forward (or backward)? Ah, well, you’ll have to ask innocent student Cody Webb, who naively called his school at that time, very close to the time a bomb threat call was made to the same school. Since the school failed to adjust their clocks correctly, he got the blame and spent 12 days in jail. Unfortunately, this prevents me from labeling this post as “Funny”.
Anyway, next time the question “what are the chances?” springs to mind remember poor, innocent, non-bomb-threatener Cody Webb. (via Digg)
Sao Paulo, Brazil: The City Without Advertising
In Sao Paulo, Brazil, the advertisers did not adhere to the city’s rules on outdoor advertising. In return, the city banned outdoor advertising entirely. So what does an 11-million citizens city look like without advertising? You can read a little more about it here or go directly to this set of pictures.
We hear about city-advertisers disputes a lot here in Israel, too. I wonder if an Israeli city will ever ban outdoor advertising. Probably when municipal corruption is gone and pigs fly. (via Digg).
Is Microsoft Dead? Define “dead”
Every time I hear someone claiming that Microsoft is dead I roll my eyes and try to stay calm while listening to a whole lot of nonsense. Recently, Paul Graham (famous hacker and also a partner in venture firm Y Combinator) wrote that Microsoft Is Dead.
While I usually distance myself from such clear cut statements, the article itself lists very good points why Microsoft is not the big fearsome monopoly it used to be, and how the new age of the Internet doesn’t take Microsoft as a threat like software companies did in the past. So while the main point in the article doesn’t seem to be that Microsoft is dead (at least not according to my definition of “dead”), it’s still a very good read. (via Download Squad)
Dice Stacking Video
The Internet exposes us to many kinds of different talents we would have never seen otherwise. I’ve covered some before, like this accurate shots post. This time, here’s a video of a new type of talent: dice stacking. Doesn’t sound like much until you watch this guy in his dice stacking action. (via Digg)
Invisibility Technologies
There’s been a lot of hype lately regarding invisibility (cloaking) technologies. It’s amazing how, for years, scientists have been trying to create cloaking devices/clothes without success and now suddenly there are so many different technologies that achieve more or less the same result. Here is a very interesting review of cloaking technologies. (via Digg)