David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Roofs are expensive. So there’s every incentive to try to make it last as long as you can before replacing it. But sometimes you reach a point of diminishing returns with repairs. Here’s how to know whether to replace or repair your roof.
When a roof tends to leak and repeated repairs don’t clear the problem, that’s a sign the roof has hidden issues. I’ll try to repair a roof once, but repeated repairs that don’t solve the issue is just throwing money away.
I was comparing notes on Twitter with some peers in the UK and Australia. The idea of benefits confused them. They asked what a typical benefits package for employees in the United States looked like, and if it explained the difference in pay between our countries. So let’s take a look.
A typical benefits package for employees in the United States includes health insurance coverage, paid vacation days, paid holidays, and some retirement. But the details can vary a bit.
One of the most common questions I get is regarding the difference between 1:64 and 1:87 scales. Someone asked me to show the difference visually. That’s easy enough to do.
An eephus pitch in baseball is a slow curveball thrown at an absurdly low speed, usually 60 miles per hour or less. Since it’s much slower than a typical baseball pitch, slower than even a knuckleball, it can catch a hitter off guard. However, if a major league hitter gets the timing right or the pitch doesn’t move like it should, it can be an easy pitch to hit.
The name eephus comes from a Hebrew word that means “nothing.” It’s a slow, junk pitch, something of a novelty, and generally better liked by fans and broadcasters than hitters.
When Commodore introduced its PET line of personal computers in 1977, they needed a bus to connect peripherals. Rather than do something proprietary, they chose an industry standard, the IEEE-488 bus originally designed by HP. It suited Commodore’s needs at the time, even though it’s pretty obscure today.
I don’t think it’s any secret that race relations in the United States are at a pretty low point right now. A Twitter post from a college professor who happens to be black hit home with me. So I’m going to relate his story to my own experience, in hopes this helps other white males like me gain a sense of understanding.
Unisys was once the second largest computer company in the world, and the name of one of its products, Univac, was briefly synonymous with the word “computer.” It’s no longer the force it once was, but Unisys survives today, in a slimmed-down form.
Unisys still produces computer hardware, including mainframes. But like its rival IBM, it makes most of its money in software, service, and integration.
I’ve advocated learning Python, and the best way to learn it is with a useful example. Here’s a very simple Python program that does something useful. It queries the Shodan API to tell you who owns an IP address.
At least two of the most popular operating systems of today are based on Unix. But what about Windows? Is Windows Unix based?
While Windows has some Unix influences, it is not derived or based on Unix. At some points is has contained a small amount of BSD code but the majority of its design came from other operating systems.