Short items (#1)
There’s stuff that I feel doesn’t warrant a full blog post, but won’t fit in 140 characters either (and I prefer the blog anyway). Because of this, I’ve decided to start bundling such bits together in a single post that’ll get flushed each Sunday if there are any items in the queue (this period could be adjusted later). The guideline is, roughly, “the item fits comfortably within a paragraph”. I think flushing weekly, independently of the numer of items, could be a good idea, because some stuff may perish. I wonder if it’d be worth trying that out for DeveloperNews.
This comes reposted from Twitter: if you’re mathematically inclined, particularly if only very slightly like myself, I invite you to spend ten minutes reading EWD975 (pdf), «On the theorem of Pythagoras» by Dijkstra. Who would’ve said that Pythagoras’ theorem could be abstracted into something that applies to all triangles and not only right-angled ones? (I hope to blog again about Dijkstra within the next weeks.)
Here’s a small and stupid riddle: “Ervin, Steven, Matthew, Benedict, Wybe.” I’ll tell you how long it’s been sitting in my computer: 6 years (it shows, too). Here’s an addendum: “Amozurrutia”. (Solution in the next issue.)
I’ve started wearing a white knot, a badge that’s been campaigned as the symbol of marriage equality (i.e., supporting marriage of same-sex couples). I’ve never worn badges before, and I’d like to salute all the not queer people that support this cause and have even started wearing a white knot themselves from time to time.
Again from Twitterland, this time Bryan O’Sullivan’s, an article in The Atlantic about a 70-year study of a couple hundreds Harvard students, pursuing some insights about what are the key factors for a happy life. Interesting enough read, at least for this uneducated mind in such matters. A quote:
[The study director] was asked, “What have you learned from the Grant Study men?” Vaillant’s response: “That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”