Tag Archives: Python

Questions

project workI’ve been playing with Python and POV-Ray, catching up on movies, enjoying the continued nice weather, and even getting in some reading.  Yet it’s still weird how little I seem to get done considering the days are all mine.  (And I still haven’t fully shaken the sense that all this free time ends at some point.)

For now, I plan to focus on project work—the previously mentioned Python and POV-Ray playing—so there may be a pause in the posting while I putter (possibly a plethora of pauses). Please stay tuned!

In the meantime, I have some questions:

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Sideband #48: L27 Details

Sideband ElectrodeOver the last two days I’ve written about a way of viewing words, sentences, even entire books, as single (very large) numbers. We do that by treating the characters in the string as “digits” in a number system we define. Technically speaking, we interpret the string as a number written in some large radix.

This is actually what we do every time we look at a written number. For example, we interpret the four-character text string “2013” as representing the numeric value two-thousand-and-thirteen. We do this easily, because we’ve grown up with the base 10 number system, decimal. The systems I’ve written about simply extend the concept.

Today, as a Sideband, I thought I’d get into some of the more technical details.

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Off Ramp Ahead

tar pit bubblesIt’s been an interesting few days. Not bad; there’s no tale of woe to tell. It’s more that things that have been churning in my mind are starting to bubble to the surface. And there have been some interesting events going on (the Minnesota Twins are fun to watch again, for instance).

Also, yesterday I (electronically) submitted the “paperwork” to officially kick off the retirement process. My last day of work will be June 28, (2π Day and my mom’s birthday!) There’s a hell of a pay cut coming up due to this early retirement, but that won’t be a real issue for a while. It’s not something I’ll need to consider until at least next year.

I warn you now: I have no idea what this post is going to be about!

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