Month: September 2013

What programming language do you think in?

cobol

Your thoughts are limited by your vocabulary. When I’m extremely pissed, sometimes English just won’t cut it and I wish I could express my anger in a Germanic tongue. Those who are fluent in multiple languages are able to formulate some really expansive thoughts.

I always wish I had taken the time to learn more languages when I was younger. My dad tried to teach me Japanese and my boyfriend tried to teach me Dutch, but I only learned enough of each to insult one’s mother before getting bored and moving on.

I now try to compensate by learning more programming languages. Each language has its best practices and boundaries. Some ideas are prohibitive in one language but frictionless to express in others. As a result, programmers of a given language will approach problems with the mindset they’ve become accustomed to.

C++ requires programmers to be thoughtful whereas Python encourages hacking. Lisp makes programmers feel like God. Perl is useful if you’re trying to throw off Chinese spies. I formulate my thoughts in Python but I wish I could think more like Lisp. Lately I have been forced to think in Java and it might be making me retarded.

I created a collection of minimum spanning tree solvers (Kruskal’s Algorithm) in 8 programming languages. I present each one as an image to visualize what a language looks like to a non-native speaker.

I gave everyone the benefit of predefined set operations.
I gave everyone the benefit of predefined set operators.

A more rational programmer might compare run time and compile time. But processors are fast enough already. If I’m staring at code 12 hours a day, I want it to be beautiful, because ultimately that’s what my thoughts will look like.

See also:
If programming languages were cars

Be Water, My Friend.

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Kathy says if I get a smartphone I’ll stop being late for meetings. Owning a smartphone would give me the ability to monitor traffic in real time. I would see upcoming blockages and obstacles and bypass them to minimize delay.

I pulled up Waze on Kathy’s iPhone screen as I sat in her passenger seat and I felt like God.

Waze allows us to monitor our precise location on this planet. We monitor our heart rate, our caloric expenditure, the weather, the markets, the friends we have on Facebook. To monitor is to manage. We monitor to feel like we’re in control.

long-winding-road

Imagine if we could view the real-time roadmap of our lives in the same way. If we could see the location of setbacks and hurdles and roadblocks. We would navigate around them, of course, because no one ever intentionally steers headfirst into adversity. Gifted with clairvoyance, we would all put ourselves on the FasTrak to wealth and power.

Receiving real-time traffic conditions on a phone makes sense, because people want to spend as little time as possible in their cars. People who dislike driving feel like they need to be somewhere. People who dislike their lives see only the roadblocks. Why are we in such a hurry to get to the nowhere that we need to be?

jrg7

Zen rock gardens are built to represent flowing water; to me they look like paved roads, or maybe the roads look like water. The obstacles are at once both in the way and exactly where they need to be. There are no detours if there is no destination. It begins with relinquishing control.

Be water, my friend [1].

Daitokuji-Zuihoin-Zuihotei-M1827

1. bruce-lee-artist-of-life

How I Turned My Nokia 3120 Into a Smartphone

Nokia 3120 with Google
Nokia 3120 with Google

I hate smartphones. I hate that the people who assemble them can’t afford them. I hate that kids in China sell their kidneys for them. I hate consumerism and the instant gratification mentality that they promote.

Most of all I hate change. I’m comfortable in my stupidphone world. Trying to get me to upgrade my phone is like telling a fat person to lose weight. From a rational perspective, I know that it’ll improve my life. But my emotional side says I don’t feel like it.

Most recently, a member of Barnacle’s advisory board threatened to resign if I didn’t get a smartphone. So I turned my Nokia 3120 into a smartphone.

First I had to upgrade my phone plan. I went from paying $10 a month for 600 minutes of voice and no text messages, to $50 a month for 500 GB of data and unlimited voice and text.

Nokia Connectivity cable

Then I used a Nokia Connectivity Cable and Nokia PC Suite to install a WAP browser. Through this browser I could access Mapquest’s text-based site and look up directions (Google Maps disabled its text-based site last year).

It works surprisingly well for a decade-old device. I’m not sure why it takes 4 minutes to load a text-only web page, but that’s less embarrassing than calling up Jim and telling him that I got lost again.

Nokia uses Series 40 as the operating system for its dumbphones, which supports mobile Java applications. Mobileheart has archived compatible applications for email and messaging. I didn’t actually install them because by this point I had spent all day getting this crap to work and was ready to commit suicide.

Can your smartphone do this?
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Helpful link for setting up a Nokia 3120: T-Mobile’s Internet and Data settings