Saturday - In the morning I acted as
chauffeur, taking a friends son to lifeguard training. Actually I let
him drive - he has a permit now, and he did a good job. Better than
many of the drivers we met along the way. Heh. Then I hit the yard
sales with his parents, and after picking him back up near lunch we all
ended up at Fire Island Grill for lunch.
Book #33 was Programming in Objective-C,
by Stephen G. Kochan. It was a good book, covering the language of
Objective-C in a fairly straightforward way. The author's goal, as he
described it, was to teach the language as if to a newbie. I think a
newbie would have a hard time with it, but I also think that it was a
good idea not to focus so much on the C and C++ links and to teach it as
language of it's own. What it didn't go into, in much depth, was the
graphics and visual parts of the interface, Cocoa Touch and the UI
classes. And, I think, that's fair enough for one text.
Friday 9 March
2012
Friday
- Took a nice long walk in the gorgeous weather, then went in for my
tax appointment in the afternoon. Despite trying to get the quarterly taxes closer I
overpaid and am still getting money back. Well, that's cool, I guess,
but it means I overpaid and lent Uncle Sam a bunch of money at zero
interest!
Grinding my way through the last few chapters of the Objective-C text
now. I think I need a bit of fingers on the keyboard to get
some of this stuff. I mean, if you understand C and pointers and
structures and memory reference, then you understand what the object
stuff is doing under the table, but it's a bit dense to take it all in
at once. Happily the applications I intend to start with are pretty
simple.
Fooling around a bit with the streaming stuff via the Vizio app on the TV - Crunchyroll
is a site that streams Japanese and Korean stuff, kind of interesting.
They didn't have the particular anime I was looking for, but do carry a
lot of other stuff. Japanese and Korean soap opera's, mostly, I think...
Thursday 8 March2012
Thursday
- So, I was looking through the archives today, using the links up on
top. Almost the ten year anniversary for the blog. Lots of good memories, and some
sad ones too.
A year ago, in February, I was visiting my friend Tim down in San
Diego, and we went down to Shelter Island. I took a couple of shots of
boats on the water using the cell phone, and used one as this week's Picture of the Week, in 2011.
Glancing at it I just realized: that the tall ship in with the North Island Hangars in the background is the Schooner America replica, based just north of there.
Hah! Awesome!
The Schooner America.
Wednesday 7 March 2012
Wednesday - not too much going on.
Sunny but cool, and even a bit windy on occasion, though not the wind
storm of earlier in the week.
Cleaning things up a bit after tax preparation - I tend to pile stuff on the floor as I sort through it.
Read another hundred pages of the Objective-C text, another day or two
and I'll be done. Then comes the hard part: actually putting some of
the book 'larnin to work.
I see they announced the Ipad3. It has much more screen resolution, and
apparently a face tracking camera on the screen side, which might be
useful for therapy type programs. But not all that big a deal, right now.
Tuesday
6 March 2012
Tuesday
- The storm, which was just high winds here in Lancaster, finally
arrived. Gusting into the 40's near my place, up to the 60's at some
places in the AV. The big impact on me was that it excited the cat, and
he would not nap, and kept pestering me while I assembled tax stuff.
Which is pretty much assembled now, yay.
Not much going on here besides that.
Book #32 was Scholar,
by L.E. Modesitt. This is a prequel to his Imager series, and is
generic Modesitt. Library book.
I posted a few weeks back on the drawing (water color?) of an ancient
wooden "line of battle" ship being used as late as 1905 as a tender in
Britain:
She was still there, as late as WWII, where she was
being used as a submarine tender!
HMS Exmouth at Scapa Flo, with
submarine HMS Tuna alongside. (Note the barrage balloons!)
She was a steam/screw auxiliary, built in the 1840's, later used as a
school ship & tender. Wikipedia incorrectly has her being broken up
in 1905, but it's pretty clear that she was around for a while longer.
Below is a picture (drawing?) of the lead ship of her class in 1854, the HMS Albion
(she was sail power only!), being towed through the Straits of Bosporus
after being damaged in the Siege of Sevastopol. When you compare the
hull shapes it's pretty certain the the hulk in WWII is the same. The
stern gallery of the painting of the vessel in 1905 looks a bit
different - three levels & more curvature - so I'm not as confident
about that.
HMS Albion. (via Wikipedia)
Monday 5
March 2012
Monday
- Taxes. Bah. I took some friends out to lunch, at the Korean BBQ, just
to get out of the house...
I'd much rather be advancing my future by studying, but taxes have to be done.
The predicted storm did not arrive. Mild overcast, and warm.
Sunday 4
March 2012
Sunday
- Pretty weather, again. But another storm is predicted for early this
week, again.
Not much going on, actually. Messing about with preparations for my tax
appointment next week.
Book #31 was #13 in the Garrett PI series, Gilded
Latten Bones. Similar to the others, though with some changes. Cook
is letting Garrett grow up a bit, and making some changes.
Picture of
the Week Photo Notes: Another Channel Islands
Harbor morning, 2012.
