Some interesting things I saw:

First, these people have made a giant flag out of cars. Cute.

Next up, two very interesting flash programs that can amuse the mind for a little while.

And now for the vertical jet! (WMV)

Our final story: the creation of a rather terrifying precision munition by the Iraq insurgents.

View from my driveway

This is a snapshot of the basketball hoop in front of my driveway.

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Flock to flock!

I love Flock. It has so many features that make it worth using.Copyright ©2006 Toku Chan

Here's a question for you. Do you use online photo–sharing sites like Flickr or Photo bucket? Do you keep a blog somewhere? Are you the same kind of socialite as I? Do you find it annoying and difficult to get the damned pictures from your camera to your blog? Even more annoying when you want to re–use them or reference them elsewhere? If you said "yes" to any one of these questions, then flock might be worth looking at.

What is flock? In a word, social. Flock is a version of FireFox, already a great product, that has a re–designed interface intended for socialites. You can easily write posts to multiple blogs, add and edit pictures to any number of picture sites, including Flickr and Photo Bucket, and even drag and drop a picture into an HTML form. When you do, the system uploads the picture to flickr automatically, then inserts the IMG tag into your form, making it drop–dead easy to use and re–use pictures in any forum that accepts HTML. Cool, ne?

One other feature is worth mentioning: snippets. Flock supports the notion of grabbing a web page as a snippet. When you write a blog entry about that page, you need only drag and drop the snippet (like this http://lowroad75.comicgenesis.com/comics/20060610.jpg), and the system inserts the HTML code to point to it. If you just drag and drop the snippet, you just get the URL to it. If you right click and select copy HTML, you get this:



, (height and width tags are edited) which is a fully cited link to the resource. Nice trick, ne?

Living life to the Max!

I love this. I can't say that I remember this ad when it was new. I can say that turning my system up and listening to Dream Theater's Octavarium is a lot like this picture...incredible!

CIMG1196.JPG

I caught this photo with just the right lighting and my macro lens. I swear, it could be in a magazine if the fish was just a bit bigger. Copyright ©2006 Toku Chan

I went out with Jimmy to try out his new bass boat. Jimmy pulled up a small bass and I caught this photo with just the right lighting and my macro lens. I swear, it could be in a magazine if the fish was just a bit bigger.

Why Ruby?

Why do I use Ruby? What makes it different or better than other languages like Python or PERL or Java or C? There is no short answer. Java, PERL, and Python were all steps up from C since they incorporated things like garbage collection, which greatly simplifies the work of a programmer. But why should a python programmer switch to Ruby?

Two reasons spring to my mind. the first is that Ruby is completely functional, while still being object–oriented. That means that things that are usually statements in languages like Java or C or even Python like if, while, for, etc., are actually expressions in Ruby. So you can make use of the contents of an if expression without the need for spurious variables or funny return statements. Also, all functions return their last evaluation, which eliminates the need for most return statements.

The second important thing is that Python, while being object–oriented to an extent, is not as object–oriented as Ruby. Python numbers are merely numbers, requiring functions to manipulate them. Everything in Ruby is an object, even numbers, literals, and temporary things like parameters. So a statement like:

for each i in some_list
 puts i

in python becomes:

some_list.each{|x| print "#{i}\n"}

in Ruby. Notice that, while the statements are about the same length, there are several differences. First, Python makes heavy use of keywords. For, each, and in, are all keywords and are therefore part of a fixed syntax. Ruby's example, on the other hand, makes use of a method call. In fact, almost all "statements" in Ruby are in fact method calls. There are very few keywords. Also, Ruby makes heavy use of blocks, something it borrowed from Smalltalk. These make iterator programming so simple that it's fun.

What does this all add up to? Ruby is a language that—in my opinion—stays out of my way while I code. I can concentrate upon the program and the design, with only a minimal amount of compiler–worship. I can say from my own personal experience—programming in a plethora of different languages—that I have the most fun when I write in Ruby. It's the nicest and most expressive language I have used to date.

Das Keyboard - The Blank Keyboard for Demanding Users.

So, how do you get better at typing? Some of us try not to look at the keyboard, some of us try other keyboard layouts. The folks at Das Keyboard seem to have a different idea.

So, what makes Das Keyboard special? First, it has no key labels, which prevents you from cheating. Second, it's built tough. IBM model M tough. Finally, I hear that it uses breaking spring keys, not membrane keys. They don't even seem to want much for it, only $90. Not too shabby.

But, what if you aren't into Zen–like minimalism? What if you like having labels to stare at? Well, the Optimus might just do the trick. It uses OLEDs to make every key customizable. This means that, when you are using Photoshop, you can allocate keys to special functions, and have those keys display icons appropriately. Impressive, ne?

I don't usually post about hardware, but I felt that: these merit special mention, and that I wanted to be able to remember them. What better place to do that then in my blog?