Hog Bay Goes Transparent

I'm an avid user of Hog Bay Notebook, and have been an active beta user. So when Jesse, the owner of Hog Bay Software told me of his plans to create a open source, transparent small software shop. I think I responded by commenting that not many people have the balls to experiment like that with their paycheck. Well Jesse does have the balls, and he did just that. I wish him all the success in the world.

Accelerated C++

I'm spinning back up on C++, after a many years of not touching it. The last time I programmed in C++, there was no such thing as STL. Accelerated C++ by Koenig and Moo is far and away the best book I've found on learning the new C++ (when did C++ programming become more like programming in Java?) The only drawback, the book looks like it was typeset by someone with their feet.

Actually, if you check the first couple pages like I just did, the authors typeset the book themselves. Guys, what are you thinking? Why not let someone who knows how to typeset a book do it for you. Addison Wesley has many such people. Use them.

Prius, still going ...

On the way home last night, in the parking lot I notices a Prius happily idling. No one was in the car. No one was even nearby. I stopped my bike, and as I did that the engine shut off and you really couldn't tell if the car was running or not. I had to wonder what the owner would think when they were headed home.

My boss drives a Prius, apparently the key is a proximity device. So as long as you have the key in your pocket, you can hit the on/off button to start the car. But if you walk away with the proximity key it'll turn everything off after a delay. So this car must have had the airconditioning on (or some power drain) that caused the engine to kick on, and it just hadn't timed out yet. Either that or the proximity key fell out of their pocket.

That must take some getting used to.

Numbers down on SUV

SUV sales are dropping. Unfortunately the US car makers have hitched their wagons almost entirely to the SUV, and now that the party is winding down they're being caught with the lights on and their pants down.

Yahoo! 360

I've been trying out Yahoo! 360, and overall I like it. But then they went and lost my blog, and today its unbearably slow. I think I'll let 360 ripen a bit before I add more content. I'll post here from now on.