Category: Technology
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The Secret in Building 26
I just finished reading The Secret in Building 26: The Untold Story of How America Broke the Final U-boat Enigma Code. What a fascinating read! I’ve written before about the UK’s contribution to code breaking during WWII (Neglect of Bletchley condemned and Bletchley Park Update), but this is the first time I learned about some of…
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Smallest Exoplanet Is Most Earth-like Yet
Smallest Exoplanet Is Most Earth-like Yet | Wired Science from Wired.com This is really interesting. It’s a planet that is twice the size of earth, and it orbits a star similar to our sun. The main similarity is that it is rocky instead of a gas giant like all the other planets found so far.…
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How great is named_scope?
If you haven’t used named_scope in Rails 2.1+ yet, I suggest you learn about it ASAP. Prior versions of Rails had a plugin that could perform similar functions, but it’s nice to have it part of the core system. What does it do? It does just what it says. It gives you a way to…
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First Direct Image of Multiple Exoplanets Orbiting a Star
First Direct Image of Multiple Exoplanets Orbiting a Star | Wired Science from Wired.comGEMINI RELEASES HISTORIC DISCOVERY IMAGE OF PLANETARY “FIRST FAMILY” Wow! This is an amazing and a serious blast from the past. It’s amazing because it’s the first time we have an image of an entire solar system. It’s a blast from the…
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Bletchley Park Update
It looks like Bletchley Park may be saved for a while. Several grants are in the works to keep what I consider the birthplace of serious computing alive for future generations to learn about. In July, about 100 UK academics signed a letter to The Times condemning the neglect of Bletchley. That seemed to have…
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More Asynchronous Processing
In a previous series on using workling and starling for asychronous processing, I described how to setup background tasks. Here is a quick way to use this for emails without a lot of changes to your application. First, create lib/asynch_mail.rb: # Makes an actionmailer class queue its emails into a workling queue # instead of…
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Gadgets and Being Green
I like to think that I am pretty green. I have an efficient house, no more SUV, not a ton of garbage, etc. Recently, however, I began to wonder if it is possible to be green if you are a techie and/or into gadgets. Gadget lovers and techies have tons of electronic stuff around the…
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Google Reader and the iPhone Battery
The other day I reached in my pocket for my phone, and it was hot. It had gone from a full charge to dead battery in 2 hours. I wrote it off as an app gone nuts. When it happened again a couple days later, I started to investigate. After a lot of experiments, I…
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DVDs on iPhone
Recently, I began taking the train into Boston. The train ride is about 50 minutes, so I have a decent amount of time to read, listen to music or podcasts. Sometimes, however, I wouldn’t mind watching one of my many purchased DVDs on the way. Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to make this happen. Note, I…
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‘Neglect’ of Bletchley condemned
BBC NEWS | Technology | ‘Neglect’ of Bletchley condemned I came across this interesting article regarding Blechley Park. I was surprised to see how rundown the place is. For those that don’t know, Bletchley Park is where the code breakers lived during WWII. It is basically the birthplace of modern computing, and it helped shortened…