Month: February 2016

  • 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 […]

  • ((((DO SOMETHING!) SMALL) USEFUL) NOW!)

    This LISP-like phrase is the personal motto of the “father of ASCII” Bob Bemer.

  • In Defense of Bubble Sort

    Bubble sort is an  algorithm with a very bad reputation. Robert Sedgwick, in Algorithms in C, notes that bubble sort is “an elementary sorting method” and “it does much more work” than it needs to. Donald Knuth is much more harsh  when he states “the bubble sort seems to have nothing to recommend it, except […]