hcrisp

I asked an AI bot to do this just this morning and it also suggested:

    - Epic
    - Tale
    - Saga
    - Chronicle
    - Legend
    - Logos

I read it recently. I liked a few of the chapters especially how policy classes fix some issues with OO design. I do recommend asking an AI chatbot to summarize each chapter and say what the modern equivalent is since some of the idioms have improved. I think one whole section was obsoleted through the use of std::variant and std::visit.

My TI-85 story involves the fact that it only had 2D plotting (though I think newer models such as the TI-89 had 3D).

I had a 3D calculus class so I wrote a program in it to plot a 3D isometric mesh of a surface using the 2D rendering library. It was slow but got the job done. I used it to help pass a test or two.

I also experimented with drawing random surfaces and objects like a tire. They looked pretty cool for a calculator screen.

The math lab at the college had a cable which you could use to take data off or put it on so you could in theory have exchanged programs with others but this was before the internet so I didn't.

I still have mine and enjoy the sliding the cover off - a trip down memory lane.

Later I rewrote the program in QBasic on a PC for fun and it was lightning fast!

You built your wife?! This robotics stuff has gone too far. Next you will be telling me that you threw your cow over the fence some hay!

Not as long but similarly lost at sea, crossing the Atlantic in a life raft: "Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea" by Steven Callahan.

McPhee was recommended as someone whose writing "makes boring things interesting". I did enjoy The Curve of Binding Energy (nuclear science) and to some extent Coming out of the Country (Alaska). Both of those featured interesting vignettes and colorful characters which propelled along the narrative.

However, I then turned to his magnum opus on geology, Annals of the Former World. That was a long slog which, although I enjoyed moments of it, now I wonder if my time wouldn't have been better spent reading something more interesting.

Also: "Roughly 85% [of a data center's energy use] is data collection from sites like TikTok and Instagram, and cryptocurrency." What a waste!

As I recall, Apollo 11 was off by 4 miles downrange, which was considered good but not precise. More work on the guidance / navigation system allowed for a precision landing in Apollo 12 (to touch down near a Surveyor probe).

Remarkably preserved for having had the keel crushed by ice. Seems the icy waters kept the wood from decaying. Looks pristine.

Jimmy Chin is the director. He just discovered some remains of Andrew Irvine from the 1924 Everest expedition. Seems he's been having a good year.