Author: pav

  • Trolls Are USA

    It’s clear that Americans are more divided than ever. Our self-segregating tendencies have been reinforced by the adoption of Internet technologies and algorithms that personalize our newsfeeds to the point that we walk side-by-side down the same streets in different mental worlds. Before the web, before iPhone, Netflix, and Facebook, the physical limits of radio,…

  • Notes on NSUserPreferences

    You can set and get NSUserPreferences from any view controller and the app delegate to they are a great way to pass data around the various parts of your iOS App. Note: NSUserPreferences don’t cross the iOS/watchOS boundry. iOS and watchOS apps each have their own set of NSUserPreferences. In the example below you have…

  • Faceless Phone

    About twelve  years ago I attended a management leadership training offsite and received a heavy glass souvenir. When I got home after the event  I put that thingamabob, which officially is called a “tombstone”, up on a shelf above my desk. Little did I know that after more than a decade of inert inactivity that…

  • On the Naming of Functions

    A thoughtful coder once said that “it’s more important to have well organized code than any code at all.” Actually several leading coders have said this. So I’ll append my name to the end of that long linked list. I’m trying to develop my own system for naming functions such that it’s relatively obvious what…

  • Code Markup in Xcode

    I’m working on  a fairly large Swift project. Actually no, that’s not quite true. I’m working on  a Swift project with a ViewController file that is getting disorganized and out of control. If this keeps up I might have a large project on my hands but right now it’s just a single file that is…

  • The Quiet Car

    I ride a commuter train to and from work everyday and occasionally I accidentally, regrettably, end up sitting in the quiet car. If you’re not a commuter you might be unacquainted  with the idea of a quiet car. It is what it says it is: a train car where you are supposed to be quiet.…

  • C Plus Minus

    While consuming Handmade Hero and coding furiously to keep up with Casy Muratori I discovered the joy of programming in a language that I deeply understand. This is not one of those new trendy programming languages that tries to be type-safe without explicit types or functional without being confusing. And yet all the new hot/cool…

  • Binge Watching Handmade Hero

    For the last several weeks I’ve been obsessed with one TV show. It’s changed my viewing habits, my buying habits, and my computing habits. Technically it’s not even a “TV show” (if your definition of that term doesn’t include content created by non-professionals that is only available for free over the Internet). But for me,…

  • Most Improved Award for Windows 10

    If there was an award for most improved in the world of tech  I would award it to Windows 10. While I am a daily Mac user, I am no stranger to Windows. Actually, let me correct myself. I live inside iOS, work in Mac OS, play around on Windows, and occationally find need of…

  • Endangered Random Numbers

    Like infinity, randomness is as easy to misunderstand as it is  useful. As an added bonus infinity and randomness are interconnected. I don’t think you can have one without the other. I’m not a mathematician but I like to think about numbers. Take a look at this series  of integers:  31415926535 It might look pretty…