https://jamesdobson.name/ Recent content on James' Blog - Notes for the Future Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us James Dobson Mon, 11 Nov 2019 00:40:00 +0000 https://jamesdobson.name/post/ci-plugins/ Mon, 11 Nov 2019 00:40:00 +0000 https://jamesdobson.name/post/ci-plugins/ When building an enterprise-scale CI system, one has to be extremely careful with the plugins that one installs in the CI system. This post describes the issues that plugins create, recommends keeping the number of plugins to a minimum, and discusses some examples of where plugins may provide value without compromising the maintainability of your CI system. Issues Created by Plugin Use While plugins seem useful at first, they can create a number of maintainability issues for your CI system if you aren’t careful. https://jamesdobson.name/post/fi-burn-up/ Sun, 27 Oct 2019 14:00:00 +0000 https://jamesdobson.name/post/fi-burn-up/ How do you track your progress to Financial Independence? Perhaps you’ve already started down the path to FI and are wondering “when will I be financially independent?” This post presents a visual technique for answering those questions. The technique itself is something I use regularly at my day job to track the status of various projects. Burn-up graphs are a way of visualizing how much work has gone into a project already, how much remains, how quickly the work is being done, and projecting a date for when the project will be finished. https://jamesdobson.name/post/differential-gearing/ Sun, 09 Jun 2019 16:46:00 +0000 https://jamesdobson.name/post/differential-gearing/ I’ve always been mystified at how differential gearing in a car works. The other day, I encountered this old-timey video that is, in my opinion, the best explanation out there. Enjoy: https://jamesdobson.name/post/one-number-two-cellphones/ Wed, 10 May 2017 21:00:00 +0000 https://jamesdobson.name/post/one-number-two-cellphones/ In 2016, the total cost based on my usage was $7.13 USD. Introduction Cost Projection ** Use the FREE subscription package so that there is no monthly account fee ** Phone number price list: https://www.anveo.com/consumer/mainphonenumbers.asp ** $0.50 / month for a canadian phone number with $0.01 per minute incoming usage ** Outgoing calls: https://www.anveo.com/consumer/rates.asp#countryC ** Pricing is $0.005 / minute for outgoing usage Sign up ** Use my referral code: 2146387 https://jamesdobson.name/post/syndicating-a-podcast/ Tue, 04 Apr 2017 15:14:00 +0000 https://jamesdobson.name/post/syndicating-a-podcast/ There’s a weekly finance-related conference call that I listen to. It isn’t syndicated, meaning that there is no RSS feed so that it can appear in my podcast manager. That’s not very convenient, so I used the following steps to make it show up as an RSS that can be added to my podcast manager. The conference call is The Turner Investments Report, a weekly call at Turner Investments. Every week, a new recording of the call is posted to the same URL: http://www. https://jamesdobson.name/post/recreating-asteroids-with-lasers/ Sun, 19 Mar 2017 21:51:09 +0000 https://jamesdobson.name/post/recreating-asteroids-with-lasers/ I saw this video playing Asteroids using a laser projector. The video has some good discussion of the original Asteroids game and why displaying it on a laser projector makes sense: I had no idea the original Asteroids arcade game used a vector display instead of raster. A quick search of YouTube shows many videos where an oscilloscope has been connected to the X and Y outputs of the game, rendering it on the oscilloscope screen (without modulation of the electron beam intensity, as that is typically not done in oscilloscopes). https://jamesdobson.name/about/colophon/ Sun, 19 Mar 2017 13:13:00 -0500 https://jamesdobson.name/about/colophon/ This site is generated statically by: and Exposé The titles on this site use the font Norwester, code uses Hack, and the rest of the text is Glacial Indifference. The site favicon is User by Baboon designs from the Noun Project, used under CC BY 3.0 US with colouring modified from original. This site is hosted on Amazon Web Services, using these fabulous technologies: https://jamesdobson.name/post/sheets-api-and-formula-calculation/ Wed, 25 Jan 2017 22:00:00 +0000 https://jamesdobson.name/post/sheets-api-and-formula-calculation/ I’ve been using the Google Sheets API to poll the values of cells computed from non-deterministic formulae, for example stock price quotes from Google Finance. Even though I poll every minute, and the data are constantly changing, the API usually doesn’t return the latest value. This is despite the fact that, if I have the spreadsheet open in a web browser tab, the cell shows the freshest data and updates every minute. https://jamesdobson.name/post/firefox-preferences-flush/ Mon, 07 May 2007 16:35:00 -0500 https://jamesdobson.name/post/firefox-preferences-flush/ The Firefox preferences system is quite amazing, but it has a tendency to cache preference settings in memory, and only seems to write to disk (the prefs.js file in the current profile folder) when Firefox exits. This means that if Firefox should crash for some reason after changing preferences, the changes would be lost. I looked and I looked for some sort of XPCOM call that would flush the preferences cache to disk, but couldn’t find anything. https://jamesdobson.name/post/why-amo-update-is-better/ Fri, 13 Apr 2007 16:06:00 -0500 https://jamesdobson.name/post/why-amo-update-is-better/ As a Firefox extension developer, I probably interact with the Mozilla Addons Site more than most people. There has been a fair amount of commenting on whether the recent upgrades to the Mozilla Addons Site are good or bad (take a look at the Mozilla Webdev Blog for information about the AMO upgrades, which is spread across several posts). I reserved judgement about the AMO upgrades initially, but have now made my decision: the new Mozilla Addons Site is better than the old one. https://jamesdobson.name/post/pencil-lead-resistors/ Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:37:00 -0500 https://jamesdobson.name/post/pencil-lead-resistors/ My mom wanted me to cut some Styrofoam. I had a nichrome wire that had been crudely attached in place of a blade on a small saw. I think I made this in Grade 6, when my teacher gave me a small length of nichrome (Nickel/Chromium) wire especially for this purpose. Unfortunately, finding a power supply that could power it was another problem. The nichrome wire has a fairly low resistance, and would draw too much current from a small power cube, even a 5V one. https://jamesdobson.name/post/ffclickonce-v6-uploaded/ Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:20:00 -0500 https://jamesdobson.name/post/ffclickonce-v6-uploaded/ After a number of bug reports that my Firefox extension wasn’t installing properly from the installation page at Mozilla Addons due to download corruption, I’ve finally tracked down the problem as best I can, and will try to elaborate on it later in this entry. But the real thing I’m writing about is that I just uploaded version 0.6 of the extension to the Addons site. Though it is pending review by the Mozilla Addons people and likely won’t be visible for a month or so, I might as well say what it includes: localization support, and translations into Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch, and both Chinese Traditional and Chinese Simplified. https://jamesdobson.name/post/freestyle-solve-released/ Fri, 20 Jan 2006 17:42:00 -0500 https://jamesdobson.name/post/freestyle-solve-released/ Well, I’m really happy to announce that I have been able to release Freestyle Solve version 0.3. This is the first public release of Freestyle Solve. Freestyle Solve is a school project that my friends and I did for our final year of Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo. It is a tablet PC application that recognizes handwritten math and uses 3rd party software to simplify, differentiate, and otherwise manipulate the equations that the user writes. https://jamesdobson.name/post/firefox-extension-approved/ Mon, 16 Jan 2006 01:30:00 -0500 https://jamesdobson.name/post/firefox-extension-approved/ Hoorah! My first Firefox extension ever was approved. It is FFClickOnce, which runs ClickOnce apps from Firefox–I’ve mentioned it previously in this blog. It is available on the Mozilla addons site. The email notifying me of the approval came in on Sunday, January 15, 2006 (yesterday). So it was a bit over a month to get this approved. Ah well, people are busy over the Christmas holidays. https://jamesdobson.name/post/firefox-clickonce/ Sat, 10 Dec 2005 14:55:00 -0500 https://jamesdobson.name/post/firefox-clickonce/ Well, Microsoft’s wonderful new ClickOnce technology for installing .NET applications doesn’t cooperate with browsers other than IE. :‘( I’m using ClickOnce to deploy my handwritten math recognition software, and I wanted people to be able to use Firefox to download it. So the first thing I did was make a helper application. When you click on a link to a ClickOnce application, the XML file that describes the application gets downloaded to your computer and then my helper application takes over. https://jamesdobson.name/post/laptop-overheating/ Tue, 03 May 2005 23:23:00 -0500 https://jamesdobson.name/post/laptop-overheating/ My laptop has been giving me problems for a while… it would shut off all of a sudden as I was using it and I had no idea why. It is a Dell SmartStep 200N, and I’ve had it for about 2.5 years. After a while, I began to realize that it was shutting off because it was getting too hot. The primary indication of this was that these shutdowns only happened when the fan was running at full speed.