All posts by wrlee

Ski Roadtrip 2015

Roadtrip: Skiing 2015 the prep

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Over the past three years, I have spent a 4 or 5 weeks in Truckee (Lake Tahoe), armed with a season pass to Squaw Valley. Last season one of my ski buddies, my dad’s cousin Brian, seemed a bit surprised that I haven’t explored more ski resorts. My contract ended early this season, so that opened up time to expand my ski horizons: a roadtrip through Canada ski resorts became  my for this season, before ending up in Tahoe.

After consultation with many of my ski aficionados I’ve come up with the following ski playlist:

  • Vancouver (visit Nann’s) 2 hrs to…
  • Whistler, Jan 20, 5 hrs to…
  • Sun Peaks, Jan 21–23, 4 hrs to…
  • Revelstoke, Jan 24–26, 2.5 hrs to…
  • Kicking Horse, Jan 27, 2 hrs to…
  • Lake Louise, Banff, Jan 28,  45 min to…
  • Sunshine Village, Banff, Jan 29,  2.5 hrs to…
  • Panorama, Jan 30, 31,  2.5 hrs to…
  • Drive  to Fernie and Seahawks-Superbowl day
  • Fernie, Feb 2, 2 hrs to…

  • Whitefish, Feb 3, 4
  • drive day, Feb 5, 6.5 hrs to…
  • Big Sky, MT, Feb 6–8?, 2.5 hrs to…
  • Yellowstone (tour, no skiing) Feb ?, 5.5 hrs to…
  • Grand Targhee?
  • Jackson Hole
  • Powder Mountain?
  • Truckee/Lake Tahoe, Feb 15
  • Seattle, end of Feb/beg of March


I tried to keep driving stints between resorts to less than three hours. If distances seemed too far, I tried to find a resort to break up the drive. Mapping out the initial route allowed me to make sure that the trip would be achievable fun and not a tiring chore. And that I could leave a couple of weeks to ski in Tahoe before the third week* of February… assuming the snow is any good.

I didn’t know what the snow conditions will be like I didn’t know how long I would be at each resort; planning would have to be somewhat ad hoc, adjusting as I go. Despite the long time, I found that there time to squeeze all this in would be pretty tight.

Travel Tech Tip: In the US, if you have an unlocked GSM cell phone (I.e., not a Sprint or Verizon phone), T-Mobile offers no contract subscriptions. For an extra $10, you can get free calling within many foreign countries and unlimited slow speed Internet data. This is a great deal. You can make necessary reservations and use navigation and other smart phone apps. If you don’t need the services once you return home, you can simply deactivate your T-Mobile account.

*

End of Feb/beginning of March is out… I have a job that will take me traveling and I have to start that job before the last week of February.
Commentary, Programming

Real Programmers Don’t Eat Quiche

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Thinking more about programmers’ lack of understanding about how computers work and their inability to program in C, that I alluded to previously, makes me say to myself “Real Programmers Use C” or “Real Programmers Don’t Use Interpreted Languages”.

I hear of no calls for C, while there are lots of call for the inefficient, interpreted languages—PHP, JavaScript, Ruby, and Python—which drive most of the “web”. These languages insulate programmers from having to know too much about how computer hardware works. Because of this, programmers never develop the innate sensitivity to computer performance. This results in our needing increasingly powerful computers to do, essentially, the same amount of work (the amount of useful work done is not proportional to increasing computing hardware performance).

Real Programmers Don’t Eat Quiche

Way back before the web was programmable, like it is today, there were a list of “facts” defining real programmers:


Variations of this list were passed around via company mail (snail mail, mail-kart, and pre-“email”). Posters of this list hung on the office walls of developers who considered themselves “real programmers.”

This, of course, was triggered by the 1982 book, “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche.” An essay appeared in Datamation magazine, “Real Programmers Don’t Use Pascal,” extrapolating on the geek version of this list (it isn’t clear whether the lists spawned the essay or vice versa).

Movie & TV Reviews

Movie Review: Need for Speed Movie

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Need for speed movie posterSometimes movies are exactly what you’d expect of them; when it’s a bad movie, that can actually be okay, so long as it has some redeeming features. If you were teenage male car-nut, the Need for Speed movie (leveraging the popularity and theme of the namesake video game by EA), then you would appreciate seeing rarefied super-cars on the big-screen. If you wanted something more than an action-packed, car-crash filled, movie with a typical American anti-hero hero story; then you should spend two hours of your time doing or watching something else. gaminator hack download

Aaron Paul walked in front of the NfS cameras the day after wrapping shooting of the Breaking Bad TV series that made him famous. Though he trades his hoodie of the TV show for a leather jacket, not much was asked of the actor for the new character—hopefully we will see if he has a broader range of acting skills in future roles. The brooding anti-hero character has proven popular since James Dean‘s character in Rebel Without a Cause and is used to cliché-effect in NfS; well-done in a predictable fashion.

Since the cars were as much a star of the movie as the actors—bigger, actually—it is worth noting that this is a car-porn movie. legjobb fogadóiroda They picked some of the most notable, to car-enthusiasts, examples of super-cars to represent. And, by “represent,” I mean faked… these cars were no more real than porn stars in the other movie genre. gaminator kockás gép But they were well done, being one of the few unique aspects of the movie. online sportfogadás adózás online nyerőgépes játékok ingyen However, they all get smashed up, which doesn’t show much respect for the reason which they’d chosen them in the first place—I guess that is typical of porn-stars. tipmix sportfogadás

Nothing about the story is based in any kind of reality. The actions of the characters barely makes any sense. tippmix élő fogadás hivatalos fogadóiroda But if you can fill in the story gaps with cliché assumptions and appreciate seeing super-car porn at speed, then your two hours won’t be completely wasted. tippmix.hu sportfogadás

Commentary, Programming

Offered: C Programmer for Hire

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C Programmer for Hire There are some projects that are best done in C. Do you have a project requirement best served by C but cannot find anyone who can write bug-free C code? A majority of programmers have difficulty manipulating data at the bits and bytes level and have little sensitivity for the performance impact of their code. Reduce risk and unpredictability in C code-quality. Hire me! @wrlee.

It’s been a while since I have seen a call for C programmers. I’ve been interviewing a lot of web programmers lately. Few of them can program in C. One word of interview-advice… if you don’t have a reasonable ability to program in C, do not offer to solve programming problems in C; there are simple mistakes that tip me to the fact that you have never written a working C program—and reveal that you do not really understand how a computer works. Use pseudo-code and focus on the problem at hand and you’ll be further ahead.

PC Build, Technology

PC Build — Power-Supplies

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2014 May.24 — Added info about efficiency and active-PFC that I forgot to include, the first time around

I’ve jumped into the middle of my series of notes on building a PC. I’ll write the intro to this series, later. I start with this, now, because this is what I spent too many hours researching, this weekend.

Corsair AX860i PSU
Image source: corsair.com
The power-supply is the gas-tank for your PC. It is also the refinery for the fuel. An insufficient power-supply and your machine will not run very well; bad power from the power-supply and your components can burn out, becoming useless pieces of metal and silicon. Continue reading PC Build — Power-Supplies →

Commentary

Personal Project List

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I have more personal projects in mind than I have taken the time to start. Too many Internet distractions, TV distractions, and general malaise. When my tweet (above) landed on my Facebook timeline, my friends were compelled to respond; which motivated me to, at least, write this list down (the first step to success—well steps 3 and 5 according to “How to Plan for a Successful Future“). Continue reading Personal Project List →