Had the most frustrating time grading projects this semester. Since I got a new laptop just before the semester ended, I held off migrating until classes were over. I took advantage of the time between classes and exams to migrate to the new laptop. Big mistake. I had to finish grading projects on the new …
Author Archives: sandro
New Mac – Lots of Pain
After too many years of upgrading from one Mac to the next, I’m starting from scratch with my latest Mac(book Air). It’s an opportune time since Mac OS X Catalina (10.15) deprecates 32-bit applications. So far it’s been lots of “fun”. All my apps have been re-downloaded, but I’m only installing them as needed. Lots …
Installing JDK 14 & JavaFX for IntelliJ
Download the JAVA SDK. I used JAVA 14 (jdk-14.0.1_osx-x64_bin.dmg) and installed. Download JavaFX, here I use v.14 (openjfx-14.0.1_osx-x64_bin-sdk.zip). Uncompress and install JavaFX: Add the following to .tcshrc (or other shell initialization file): 5. In IntelliJ, set a Path Variable for JavaFX: Follow the directions in the JavaFX documentation to configure projects to use JavaFX: https://openjfx.io/openjfx-docs/#IDE-Intellij …
First order of “new business”
Since it has been so long since the last post, there is a need to do some catching up. First and foremost, I’m now a professor at Montgomery College. Actually, I’ve been there since January. While I will miss teaching some of the more advanced courses, I look forward to focussing on teaching and student …
Back online
After a long hiatus on writing and a somewhat shorter, but still months long unavailability online, I’ve got my blog back online. Most of the pictures and some of the links are still missing. I’ll try to replace them as I am able. In the meantime I hope to post at least occasionally going forward. …
The first question you should ask about every new cryptocurrency
It is easy to fall victim to the urge to jump on each new coin. The hype around an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) is usually enough to drive even the most sober investor to distraction. But before you jump on any coin you have to ask yourself at least one key question: Does this idea …
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What is OmiseGo and why is it up 2,570%?
What is OmiseGo? OmiseGo (symbol: OMG) is a new cryptocurrency designed to help lower the cost of currency and asset exchange. The OmiseGo token sold out its $25 million initial token offering during the pre-sale period from June 7–23, 2017. The result was over 140 million OMG tokens with an estimated market capitalization of $35.6 …
Compiling cpuminer on a RaspberryPi
I just spent the last bit compiling cpuminer on the RaspberryPi, and here’s my notes: sudo apt-get install automake libcurl4-openssl-dev libssl-dev ./configure Edit the compat/jansson/makefile and switch ar and ranlib to gcc-ar and gcc-ranlib make strip cpuminer
Market Cap is a strange beast
To paraphrase a great sword fighter, “I don’t think it means what I think it means.” Consider the following thought experiment: Imagine a stock that issued 100 shares for $100 each 100 years ago. No one then buys or sells for 100 years. The market cap for the last 100 years works out to $10,000 …
Is DIY-BIO the Personal Computing of the 21st Century?
Last last year I ran across the following article in IEEE Spectrum: Tools for Would-Be Biohackers. Since I have a daughter with interests in Biology, I considered getting her one of these “mini-labs” as a Christmas gift. The high cost had me wondering if this was an outrageous idea. It works out that adjusting for inflation, …
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