Interfaces in Go make it hard to navigate code

via HNTweets

Google’s Go and implicit interface declaration … Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5773810

Lisp Prolog and Evolution:

Via @HNTweets.

Sami Badawi writes about how LISP, Prolog, and programming languages since then.

Kitty and Spider

I learned something new about spiders.

The cat was chasing something around the living room floor that I expected was probably a spider.  When the chase finally took the kitty behind the armoire, my daughter took a picture of him back there with her phone.

As usual, it was a picture of a cat with eyes glowing brightly from the flash.

I remarked that it would be really funny if you could, in fact, see the spider's eyes glowing, too.

Looking at the picture, she replied, You can!

So there they were, a kitty and a spider, both with glowing eyes.  I had no idea that spider eyes did that!  (Or at least some part of a spider).

We could even stand there,  sight along our phone flashlights aimed directly at the spider and see the little reflections, very distinct and bright.  It looked like there were two of them even though I was pretty sure that arachnids have eight eyes.

Helioseismology from Kepler

In light of the Kepler space observatory's malfunction, which may bring the mission to an early end, here's a nice overview of some of Kepler's contribution to stellar astrophysics from Sky and Telescope.

A 90-Second Image of M13

From @makapala

@darkskyman took this 90 second snap of M13 at @TheAstroCamp a few weeks back http://flic.kr/p/ehSg4U

Amazing!  90 seconds!

The Moon Over Andromeda

One of my favorite bits of information about the sky is how HUGE the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is.  The thing about galaxies is that they are terribly dim.  Think about it.   We're inside the Milkly Way galaxy and yet, except for the nearby bright stars, we can barely see it unless we go to the darkest spot we can find.

In fact, the apparent size of Andromeda is serveral times the apparent size of the moon.  This photo where the moon is superimposed shows this clearly.

Even when you do see M31 with the naked eye, which you can from a dark location, it doesn't look this big.  Objects have to be bright to look large.  In the same way, the Pleides is much larger than the moon, but they look tiny on the sky.

http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/html/im0606.html


Image credit: REU program, N.A.Sharp/NOAO/AURA/NSF

Interesting Career Advice

For College Grads From LinkedIn's Billionaire Founder 

via @HNTweets

Posterous

So long, Posterous.  I enjoyed using the service.

First Tweet

My Twitter archives finally became available.  My first tweet on my very first account (which is private now) was Mon 2009-01-12 13:12:00 -0500: “Signing up on twitter.”


My first tweet on my main account was on Sat 2009-04-25 07:16:00 -0400.  This was my first non-test tweet  on that account.

MicroSD card FAQ

Via @HNTweets

At Bunnie Studios.

Data Models for the Internet of Things

Via @HNTweets


The Internet of Things needs an Open Infrastructure by Michael J Koster.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Somehow I'm terribly behind with greetings this year.

Ten Years of Blogging

Well, I let the 10th anniversary of this blog slide by as I forgot to mention it.   So, as the year draws to a close maybe that's the second best time to mention it, 10 years and 102 days according to my Python computation.   The first blog post to Monolith Daily (which was, indeed, my first blog post of any kind) was on 2002-09-16.

Actually I wrote about the history for the ninth anniversary.

So Long, Gerry Anderson

Via @HNTweets

Gerry Anderson has died by Jamie Anderson.

My favorite supermarionation shows were Supercar and Fireball XL5.  Of course I watched Space 1999 and UFO.  I recall Thunderbirds, which seems to be so popular, but I don't remember watching it that much.

Anderson was responsible for one of my favorite sci fi space movies of the 60s, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun.  The space walk scene with the music (theremin?) was quite beautiful, I always thought.

PC World's Top 10 Linux Distributions

Via @pcworld


Another year, another totally different top 10 Linux distros by Katherine Noyes.

1. Linux Mint
2. Mageia
3. Ubuntu
4. Fedora
5. openSUSE
6. Debian
7. Arch Linux
8. PCLinuxOS
9. Zorin OS
10. CentOS

Some Amazing Astronomical Images of 2012

Via @wired

I won't go as far as Wired's title, Best Space Photos of the Year 2012 in the article by Adam Mann, but these are amazing images.

For amazing astronomical images, one every day, see Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD).

This image credit: ESO/B. Bailleul

Some Thoughts on This Evening's Mobile Tornado

via @USWeatherExpert

on MIKE SMITH ENTERPRISES BLOG.

Air Force Flying Saucer Declassified

via @wired

Declassified at Last: Air Force’s Supersonic Flying Saucer Schematics by BENJAMIN PLACKETT at Wired.

Christmas Storm Update

From Mike Smith Enterprise Blog, 4:55 am.   And following posts.

Shortest Day of the Year

So is 2012-12-21 the shortest day of the year?  The actual solstice occurs at different times in different years so I expect this varies.  For this year, looking at the web site timeanddate.com (two d's), which I found via Google…   (Sigh, the power just went out again!)

…It looks like it's actually 21 Dec, at least in Atlanta, GA.  This snippet of their chart shows sun rise and set times, and the length of the day.