Hidden Messages in Programming Textbooks

Introductory programming courses usually start with an example program called “$g(Hello World).” Hello World uses variables named “foo” and “bar.”

Innocent syllables? Not.

Foo and bar come from $d(FUBAR), an old military term meaning F—– Up Beyond All Repair.

So nearly every intro computer science textbook hurls an expletive at new students.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Geeking at the Gym

I have a Compaq iPAQ 3970 PDA. It was given to me about a year and a half ago by SMU because we were going to write a PDA-based ticket writing software for the SMU police department. I wasn’t going to write the software, but as a web geek I was supposed to provide support and knowledge.

The project never got off the ground.

Now I use the PDA to be my Outlook calendar, contacts, and task list when I am not at the office. It’s incredibly useful for this.

My favorite use is a gym workout tracker. The PDA comes with a scaled down version of the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program called Pocket Excel. After I use each exercise machine at the gym I jot down the weights I used and how many repetitions I managed into my spreadsheet. (Click on the spreadsheet to see how wimpy I really am.) Over time I will graph my workout results to see if I am improving.

Junk Food Junkie

I am such a junk food junkie.

I eat donuts at work about once a week when someone brings them. I eat pastries at Sunday school. I bought some soft drinks to help keep me awake during my summer class, but I’ve already drunk one at the desk. I have a stash of honey roasted salted peanuts because I get hungry in the late afternoon. Etc. Etc.

Maybe this is OK because there is almost no junk food at my house. Last night I was hungry towards 10:00 PM, and the only convenient thing to eat was Frosted Mini Spooners (a very good and inexpensive Malt-O-Meal knockoff of Kellogg’s Bite Sized Frosted Mini Wheats).

Oh, well. I think I am about 15 pounds below my high school weight, so it’s all good?

Counting spare change

Slow: do it by hand.

Stupid: use a Coinstar machine. These machines charge around 8 cents per dollar. That’s a whopping 8% tax just for the privilege of letting a machine do it for you.

Better: some bank branches have change counting machines that will count your money for free. Call around.

Best: just take your spare change with you next time you go to the store. Use the self-checkout isle, and cram coins into the machine until you paid your bill.

When I do self-checkout, I first empty out all my coins, then I use $1 bills, then $5 bills, etc. This way I am guaranteed that whatever change is returned is the lightest possible combination of currency.