Ron at 09:17, 7 February 2014

2014-02-07T09:17:37Z

Ron: Created page with " {{blog}} {{bheadernew|Jan 31st|http://ronware.org/devar/teruma5774.pdf}} Hi, again! The week that was, weak it was!..."

2014-01-31T07:47:38Z

Created page with " {{blog}} {{bheadernew|Jan 31st|http://ronware.org/devar/teruma5774.pdf}} Hi, again! The week that was, weak it was!..."

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{{bheadernew|Jan 31st|http://ronware.org/devar/teruma5774.pdf}}

Hi, again!

The week that was, weak it was! Well, not really. In fact, it was full of adventure and intrigue. Well, not really…

In fact, we were busy as usual. Daniela lead her students in a live-broadcast play, a “siddur party”, which we were able to view from the comfort of our home. Her students were ''remarkably well-behaved''… Sarah was doing projects for school and planning a summer-trip with her friend Dinah. She also received her official “bagrut” (graduation from high-school) documents, which she had simply ignored — they ended up getting sent to her. A lesson in procrastination’s benefits. Esther put together her [http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/012414-687583-argentina-and-venezuela-are-chronicles-of-devaluations-foretold.htm summer-trip to Argentina] (with Sarah). She also renewed her Israeli passport in just a few moments (take that, USA!). And she and I met with my former boss and agreed to hire his company to help give our company strategic guidance over the next several months. Meanwhile, I was furiously busy whipping all my various software into shape.

During that whipping process I made several rather cryptic comments on FaceBook, alluding to my progress or lack thereof, which only my fellow techno-geeks would grok. But I had the pleasure of translating my nerd-speak into something Esther would understand, which is important. It’s important, because she’s the “face of the company”, so to speak, and will need to be able to explain some of the technical issues to potential clients.

In one instance, I said: “All straggling refcounts have been mercilessly eliminated”. That means nothing to most of you; if you’ll indulge me, I’ll give a short explanation. In [http://aaron-tech.com/8th.html the 8th programming language], everything — numbers, text, what have you — is an “object”, and the user of 8th creates an object when necessary, and “holds onto it” by putting it “on the stack” or by putting it “in a variable”. By holding onto it, the user can do something with it — use it in a calculation or whatever. Most of the objects thus created use resources such as memory, and if they didn’t release the resources they used then eventually the system would run out of those resources, [http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/031204.html causing a “freeze” or a “crash”]. That would usually be considered a Bad Thing.

In many programming languages, the programmer needs to manually take care of “allocating” and “de-allocating” the object’s resources. But 8th has as one of its goals the elimination of that painful pitfall. So in 8th, each object has a “refcount”, which is a count of how many “references” are made to that object. An object on the stack or in a variable gets an increase in its refcount. When the refcount drops back to zero, it means nobody wants the object any more and its resources can be released. So this week, I added lots of tests for “refcount problems”, and got them all under control. This is important especially for a program which might run a long time, so it doesn’t suddenly freeze up the system. Anyway, now you know what a “refcount” is; you can thank me later.

And now for something completely different:
* [http://www.muqata.blogspot.co.il/2014/01/lies-damn-lies-and-mk-dr-ahmed-tibi.html Ahmed Tibi] – what a guy! Hates Israel, says it’s an apartheid regime, but is an elected MK sitting in the Knesset. Don’t the Arabs have ''any shame'' at all? Never mind, that was a rhetorical question…
* But at least, he’s not as big a loser as this week’s ''shahid'' wannabe who [http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176903 ran towards soldiers, yelling ‘Allahu akbar’]. Maybe it was [http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2014-01-28/ Mullah John Smith]?
* Thank you, [http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/176895 Miss Scarlett]. You have kicked the BDS idiots in the teeth, thank you!
* The Great Orator gave his [http://www.thecommentator.com/article/4674/state_of_the_union_state_of_a_failing_presidency State of the Union] speech this week, to widespread yawning.
* In Lima, Peru there is a [http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/2195895 statue of a woman with a llama on her head]. She was supposed to have a “crown of flames”, but the word “llama” in Spanish has several meanings, and the artist picked the wrong one…
* [http://reason.com/archives/2014/01/27/eat-your-frankenfood Frankenfood]. It’s what’s for dinner!
* How to give [http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/020124.html technical explanations] to your elders

We’ve got two seminary girls staying with us this ''shabbat'', and a new ''olah'' will be joining us for dinner. So we’ll look forward to serving up:
<br>
red lentil soup,
basil chicken,
meatballs,
zucchini ''pashtida'',
eggplant rolls filled with rice,
veggie chili,
rice,
''salatim'',
roasted potatoes
and apple-cake.

Until next week,<br>
''shabbat shalom'' and ''ḥodesh tov''!

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Blog/January 2014/Jan 31st - Revision history

Ron at 09:17, 7 February 2014

Ron: Created page with " {{blog}} {{bheadernew|Jan 31st|http://ronware.org/devar/teruma5774.pdf}} Hi, again! The week that was, weak it was!..."