Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen November 19, 2011
Posted by stuffilikenet in Books, Brilliant words.add a comment
I usually enjoy reading the works of Carl Hiaasen, and Nature Girl
I might explain that Hiaasen’s books usually sound inside my head like an old drunk muttering to himself in a bar (which I guess says more about me than I should commit to the never-forgetting Interwebs), while Jane Curtin’s reading imbues each character with a presence that a senile alcoholic can’t quite match. I adored her reading of the Native American Sammy Tigertail’s hallucinations about the dead white guy he dumped in the swamp. Hysterical, and that’s just the beginning.
Nature Girl
Can’t recommend it too highly.
I should point out that, amazingly enough, Audible has managed to charge TWICE the price of the CD version for their almost-free-for-them-to-deliver downloadable files, which I understand have DRM anyway. Be smart and buy the CD. It’s just silly any other way.
A Big, Wet Kiss November 17, 2011
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I have so many things to say right here and, like Auntie Em, I can’t.
Pillow Fight Armoury November 15, 2011
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Much Better View From ISS November 13, 2011
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Childhood Assumptions November 11, 2011
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When I was a tyke my parents owned a copy of Kon-Tiki
They actually look more like this:
I hope this clears up any confusion.
Invisible Squid Dodge Predators November 11, 2011
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Japetella heathi and Onychoteuthis banksii can switch rapidly from red or black to transparent in order to avoid predators who watch for shadows above them. At more benthic depths they turn back to red or black to avoid detection from bioluminescent hunters.
No, really:
From ScienceDirect.com.
Korean Hello Kitty Cafe November 10, 2011
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In Seoul.
Ouch.
Oh, gods.
Starlings Flocking in Huge Numbers November 8, 2011
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I apologize if it doesn’t display well here. I never seem to integrate Vimeo videos correctly the first time.
Adventures in C# .NET Programming November 4, 2011
Posted by stuffilikenet in Applications, Awesome, Brilliant words, Geek Stuff, Publishing Tools, Toys.add a comment
I promised a while ago to write a review of James Foxall’s Teach Yourself Visual C# 2008 in 24 Hours and I meant it at the time. Instead I have found that I learned enough from his first book Teach Yourself Visual Basic 2008 in 24 Hours: Complete Starter Kit
Like all frail, elderly types I have real trouble learning a new language so I looked for a flashcard program with mixed success. Professional programs for my (also frail, elderly) phone (a WinCE 5.0 job) cost a pile and had really tiny fonts. I decided to make my own.
I don’t know that I need to tell you how hard this was or how many times I had to ask for help from wiser minds (thanks Ben, Shabnam and Mark!) with the requisite 10000 hours under their belts. But I muddled through somehow and even figured out what went wrong on the last few things without help from my cow-orkers (hyphenation intentional).
Here’s how it looks on the emulator:
You can see that it’s set for the second set of flashcards (twenty words a set, fifty sets). The top button flips to a new Spanish word. The bottom will show you the English equivalent if you press it. My phone and the emulator have trouble with accented Spanish characters, but that’s a job for the future.
I learned to parse files from WordsGalore, a free flashcard program for PC which I strongly recommend, with support for Spanish, Chinese and Korean. I haven’t included much of WordsGalore’s marvelous functionality such as the elimination of words in which the student is already confident, but the phone probably can’t handle it (not just that I can’t program it, yet). I learned the basics of debugging using Visual Studio 2008. I learned to plagiarize by examining other’s code (“only please to call it ‘research’”). I learned how to make .CAB files for easy distribution (look here). I learned that my cow-orkers are very patient with me, for which I am truly grateful.
Exciting update: I modified it to include a switch button which allows the English words to display first instead:
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss November 3, 2011
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Because my mother and sister don’t read BoingBoing.
