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LuldCalc is now available for Android.

Learn more about Limit Up Limit Down here: http://www.luldplan.com

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The app is now available on Google Play:

This is an odd book.  It is a classic, yet among the least useful books in my library.  The authors Gamma, Helm, Johnson, and Vlissides, affectionately referred to as the "Gang Of Four," wrestled with Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) to produce a catalog of solutions.  Inspired by the pattern languages used in architecture -- notably by architect, design theorist, and professor, Christopher Alexander -- they worked to imbue software development with the same formality, benefits, and gravitas of the age-old discipline.

To some degree, the "Gang Of Four" succeeded. They explored and reinforced a working vocabulary regarding software design such as Model View Controller, Singleton, and Factory.  Unfortunately, they also promoted jargony and academic terms such as adapter which is better known as wrapper, observer for publisher/subscriber, and compositor and composition for formatting classes.

OOP, while still popular, is waning, yielding to both new styles such as f…

One Sunday morning, I noticed a US Postal truck driving like a DHL delivery van -- in a word, frantically.  Normally, my mail carrier is methodical, efficient, and friendly.  Apparently, he was delivering for Amazon.

I've read accounts where the drivers welcomed the extra work and the subsequent pay, but I've also read accounts where additional tools -- straps and dollies -- weren't provided to help with larger and heavier packages, making those drivers uninterested in the overtime.

On another Sunday morning, my bank branch was open, mainly because the bank across the street adopted Sunday hours.  Inside, the mood was somber and the air was stale.  The ventilation system was dialed back to account for fewer people.  Normally, the tellers were friendly and engaging, offering lollipops to customers with children.  Looking into the tellers' eyes, I could see they just hoped to make it through the day.

I never went back on a Sunday.  Fortunately, the extend hours at the b…

Version 1.1 is available for downloading at the app store.  The changes are cosmetic: contrast and readability have been improved, and the icon has a cleaner design.

More info about LuldCalc can be found here: https://www.ytechnology.com/p/luldcalc.html

macOS Mojave introduced stacks to organize and clean up the desktop.  I like and use that feature, but sometimes, I want to go a little more minimalist and hide my desktop entirely.

Those who have bitten the Apple already know the commands to hide and show the desktop.





Hide:
defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool false && killall Finder

Show:
defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true && killall Finder

For the uninitiated, I will explain the commands and help you put them in a couple of scripts so you can hide and show the desktop at will.

First, you will need to launch the terminal app.  It lives in the Utilities folder, but you can also use Apple's Spotlight Search and type in "terminal"


Once you launch the terminal, you can type in the above commands and watch your desktop hide and reveal itself respectively.

The defaults command gives you access to the Mac OS user default settings.  You can read the value of CreateDesktop, or in th…

Upon encountering various programming languages during my career, some appealed to me instantly, while others left me cold.  I never really understood why, but perhaps by writing about them, I can discern a pattern.

PL/C: This was the first language I learned.  Structured, imperative, and procedural, PL/C was Cornell's teaching variant of PL/1, and the language shaped much of my thinking.  It was a good language, and I liked it, but it was also an academic language and one I would never see or use again.

Basic (IBM PC): It was hate at first sight.  The language relied on line numbers, needed GOTOs, and was interpreted. But it was early in the PC days and I had to use it if I wanted to do anything useful.  In time, Basic became a compiled language and eventually evolved into Visual Basic for Windows programmers.  But even then, the first version of Visual Basic did not directly support arrays, an omission that convinced me that Basic would forever be a dumbed-down language.

8088 Asse…