Author: Andrew Huey

Thomas Campbell on Charlie Rose

Thomas Campbell was on Charlie Rose about a month ago, talking about the Met Breuer and a lot of other stuff related to the Met. It’s a good interview, touching on a lot of stuff going on at the Met right now, and going deep into the Unfinished exhibit at the Breuer.

Civil War

I went to see Civil War yesterday afternoon. (I took a half-day off from work.) I enjoyed it a lot. I like that the Marvel film universe has matured to the point where they can just throw a bunch of heroes into a movie and not feel like they need to recount everyone’s back story. The film is loosely based on Marvel’s Civil War series from about ten years ago. (I was surprised when I checked that and realized how long ago it was. Time is just flying by…)

I had read that series, and some of the tie-in books, when they came out, and I had mixed feelings about the event as whole, though parts of it are quite good. In particular, I liked J. Michael Straczynski’s Spider-Man tie-in. There’s a really good sequence that’s referenced in the movie, though in a different context and with the dialog coming from a different character. There’s a good article about it here, with the original comic pages included.

Spider-Man is included in the film, on loan from Sony, which is kind of neat but also kind of ridiculous. There’s an article from the LA Times about how this happened, and how hard it was to arrange to “borrow” the character from Sony. Spider-Man’s appearance does actually add something useful to the movie: the perspective of a new, young, hero who hasn’t interacted with all the “big shots” in the Marvel universe, like Cap and Iron Man. And of course some typical light-hearted Spider-Man banter.

The movie is quite long, almost two and a half hours, but it holds up pretty well over that length. I think that’s a little too long for a superhero movie. A tighter two-hour movie would have been better. It will probably work well on home video though, where you can pause it and take a break, or watch it in two or three sittings.

Day Against DRM

Today is the 10th annual Day Against DRM. Which means that all ebooks at O’Reilly are 50% off today! And all ebooks at Packt are $10 each. I should really finish some of the books I already have before buying any more though. We’ll see if I can make it through the day without buying any new C# or F# or Ruby books…

Met Gala

My Twitter feed tonight is full of photos from the Met Gala. The Times had a good article today explaining a bit about the Gala, and how it works. The whole thing is kind of ridiculous and leaves a bad taste in my mouth, though it is all kind of amusing, I guess.

I’m not a big fan of the Costume Institute, and generally don’t get much out of their exhibits. It doesn’t seem to me like the kind of stuff that should even be in the Met. But I know I’m probably in the minority here. And while the Gala apparently makes a lot of money, it seems like all of it is used to fund the Costume Institute and not other departments at the Met, if I understand it correctly. If they were using some of that money to buy up a few new Monet or Cezanne paintings, I’d be all for it. But I guess some of the Costume Institute exhibits bring a lot of people (and ticket money) into the Met, in general, so that’s something.

I was at the Met yesterday, and checked out the Vigée Le Brun exhibit again, and the new Pergamon exhibit. And I’m looking forward to a sunny day, so I can see the new roof garden installation.

F# for C# Developers

I finished reading F# for C# Developers today. I just checked, and I started reading it almost exactly two years ago. (I didn’t really read all the way through to the end today, admittedly; I skimmed some parts that weren’t that interesting to me. But I read most of it.) One part that was of interest was a section on WebSharper, which looks like a pretty nifty way to create web apps in F#. I’d like to play around with that some more.

I also made some more progress on Real-World Functional Programming, reading the chapter on testing, which used xUnit.net for unit testing in F#. I’d never tried xUnit.net before; I’ve previously used NUnit a bit, for C# unit testing, and I’ve also used the unit testing functionality built into recent versions of Visual Studio. So xUnit.net is another thing I’d like to play with some more.

I’m probably going to get side-tracked from this F# stuff again pretty soon, but hopefully I’ll have time this week to make some more progress.

recreational programming with F#

I haven’t done much recreational programming this year. I had some spare time this week though, so I dove back into F#. I picked back up on F# for C# Developers and Real-World Functional Programming, and made a little progress in both. I started reading F# for C# Developers in April 2014, but put it aside when it didn’t seem like I was really understanding it.

In 2014 & 2015, I managed to read all the way through The Book of F#, which was a lot easier to get through and made more sense to me.

I picked up Real-World Functional Programming in December 2015, and made some progress through it in December and January, but then I put it aside and hadn’t had a chance to get back to it until this week.

So my education in F# has been really hit or miss. I’ll mess around with it for a few months, then drop it for a few months, then come back to it. I haven’t been able to use it for a real project at any point, though I’ve used it to solve a few Project Euler problems. (Speaking of which, I see that the last Euler problem I solved was in April 2015, so I haven’t done one of those in a year.)

F# itself seems to be doing well. This Happy F# Day post from Scott Wlaschin links to a lot of the recent developments in F#, including what he calls the “mainstreaming” of F#. So continuing to learn F# doesn’t seem like a waste of time. I should really find a good practical project to use it on though.

Rovi Buys TiVo

A company named Rovi just bought TiVo. This wasn’t unexpected, and hopefully won’t affect my TiVo Bolt, which is a really great DVR and streaming media box. I hope the combined company does well. I don’t think this deal will affect the TiVo hardware or service at all, at least in the near future.

I think that, if I ever have to give up my TiVo, I’ll probably take that as my cue to give up on cable TV altogether.

Evernote Essentials

I just finished rereading Brett Kelly’s Evernote Essentials. I first bought it and read it in 2014. He released an updated version recently, so I thought I’d download it and give it a quick reread. It does have some updates since the last version I read, but nothing that I wasn’t already aware of. If you’re new to Evernote, and want to get up to speed quickly, it’s a good book to read. He’s now selling it in three versions; one is just the book, then there are “plus” and “premium” versions with extra content, including video and audio content. I can’t really imagine needing the extra content, though I’m sure it’s good, if you’re really into Evernote, and don’t mind paying for it.

I’m still getting a lot of use out of Evernote. They’ve updated the Mac and Windows clients recently, with some interesting new features. In the recent past, updates to the desktop software were sometimes more annoying than useful. They’d add non-removable buttons for features I don’t use, like “Work Chat”. But lately, they’ve actually been adding useful features and capabilities, such as the new Cmd-J feature on the Mac.

yet more Apple Watch stuff

I know I’ve written too many posts on the Apple Watch recently, but here’s one more, with a few links and random notes.

First, my watch suggested a new “move” goal, as expected, this morning. So now my goal is 450 calories instead of 560. I actually did hit 560 yesterday (Sunday). I was in NYC and did a lot of walking. But I don’t think I’d ever come close to that on a normal day. The new goal is a bit closer to reasonable. I got to 400 calories today, and could have gotten more if I wasn’t tired all day. (I don’t think I slept too well last night.)

I haven’t paid too much attention to the link between the phone and the watch. I know it normally uses Bluetooth, but can also use wifi. I usually have my phone close at hand, so it’s not a problem. But today I was unexpectedly called into a meeting, and left my phone at my desk. I was surprised to see that the watch was still connected to the phone, via Bluetooth. The conference room isn’t too far from my cubicle, but I wouldn’t have thought it was in Bluetooth range. But I guess it is. So that’s a plus, if I get called into a meeting again and don’t bring my phone.

I’m still stumbling across some interesting “one year with the Apple Watch” posts, including this one from M.G. Siegler and a lengthy write-up from Ars Technica.

I’m also seeing more speculation about the next Apple Watch. I’m not sure what’s actually going to happen with that. I’ve seen some reports that the next watch will be thinner, and that’s about it. And others that say they’ll add a cellular radio. And I’ve seen speculation that it might come out in the fall, or that it might not appear until early next year. So who knows what’s going to happen there. Regardless of what they do, I doubt I’ll trade mine in any time soon. A thinner watch would be nice, but not necessary, and a cellular radio would probably mean one more monthly device charge on my Verizon account.