Enjoyed seeing Captain Marvel this evening. Now referring to our cats as the flerkins. Also to satisfy some 90’s nostalgia, I’m playing Secret of Mana on the SNES Classic.
Author: Mark
Mark is an American computer programmer living in Switzerland.
Closing my rings
Closing my Apple Watch rings by going out drinking, like a boss! (Which I guess technically I am since I work for myself?)
Markdown CV
About a month ago I decided I ought to dust off my CV and get it updated. My CV is a Pages document, and it always seems like my CV is 90% formatting and 10% content, which drives me crazy. I’m a developer; I believe in interoperability, open file formats, and of course making my life easier. It seems like I ought to be able to write my CV in Markdown or something and host it online instead of printing it out or having to email it to people.
(Apropos of being a developer: instead of simply updating my CV, I spend more time figuring out a “solution” to theoretically make updating my CV in the future easier.)
I did some Googling and came across this project to publish your CV in Markdown via GitHub Pages. This would let me have my CV in Markdown and have version control. 🎉🎉🎉🤣
So I forked the repo, rewrote my CV in Markdown, updated it with what I’ve been doing for the past 5 years, and published it on GitHub Pages. Then I put a top-level menu link to it on this website.
I’m not satisfied with the current formatting, but that’s just a CSS file I can adjust (but probably never will). I’m also not satisfied with the content (I think I need to improve the descriptions of the roles I’ve played in various projects). But overall I’m happy with it¹ for the following reasons:
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- Updated content
- Markdown format
- Hosted online (with link from front page of my website)
- Version control
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¹Never conflate being satisfied with being happy
How to add an Obj-C bridging header to a Swift framework target in Xcode 10
You can’t, but here’s how you work around it. (Xcode 10.1 generates a compile error if you try to specify an Objective-C bridging header for a framework target.)
- Select the header file(s) you wish to bridge, and in the Target Membership section of the File Inspector, check to include it in your framework and then mark it as
Publicin the dropdown that appears. - Include the header file(s) in the main header file of your framework.
#import <MySDK/MyHeaderFile.h>
Source: Stack Overflow (naturally!)
(This was the first time I’d ever seen the Public / Private / Project dropdown under Target Membership. I guess it’s only for headers, which you don’t typically manually include in a target.)
End of season ski
Tried to do some end of season skiing at Sattel-Hochstuckli, but the snow was too hard for it to be any fun for me. I think this might be it for my 2018-19 season unless we make another weekend trip to the Alps.
Space 1988
New Parts
- Bar 1 x 8 x 2
- Panel 3 x 2 x 6
- Panel 3 x 3 x 6 Corner Convex
- Panel 4 x 4 x 6 Corner Concave
Lunar Transporter Patroller (6770)
Features: Articulated truck with flashing lights and siren sounds powered by the big 9V battery box in the rear. Came with one astronaut.
Thoughts: OK, but not great.
Twin-Winged Spoiler (6828)
Features: Small craft with a single astronaut.
Thoughts: Is it a walker or a flyer? Either way this small Futuron set came with plenty of cool parts.
Space Patroller (6830)
Features: Small swing-wing space plane with boosters that double as twin robot companions!
Thoughts: The detachable robots are neat. The new panel piece forms the ship’s windscreen.
Strategic Pursuer (6848)
Features: Single pilot mecha with a transparent blue windscreen.
Thoughts: Primitive mech with arms jointed only at the elbows and legs only at the ankles. Still, it looked cool.
Hovercraft (6875)
Features: Single pilot spacecraft with two deployable satellites/drones.
Thoughts: Two of the new panels in transparent blue form a wider windscreen than in Space Patroller (6830).
Alienator (6876)
Features: Menacing walker with tool storage in the rear and detachable cockpit.
Thoughts: I really like the looks of this model. The new panel piece in transparent yellow forms the windscreen. It seems like the rear cargo area could have held more than just a pair of tools…
Crater Crawler (6885)
Features: Articulated vehicle hauling a small scooter and a robot in the trailer.
Thoughts: First black-suited Futuron astronaut. A pair of the new convex corner parts in transparent blue form the cover on the trailer while a pair of the new concave corner parts in white form the wheel arches.
Interplanetary Rover (6925)
Features: Articulated vehicle with independent suspension, a small scooter stored in the rear, two robots, and two astronauts.
Thoughts: Feels like a rehash of the Uranium Search Vehicle (6928) from 1984. I do like the headlights and the robots look like they could work for Blacktron.
Message Intercept Base (6987)
Features: Large Blacktron base features opening hangar doors, moving comm dome, spaceship, rover, and five astronauts.
Thoughts: My vote for best space base ever. All three types of new panel pieces are used in this base, especially to form the S-shaped corridor. Like the Futuron Monorail Transport System (6990), this base has two moving functions. I love all the little details in this set.
The opening wall function (courtesy of a Technic rack winder) is similar to that of Cosmic Laser Launcher (6953) from 1987.
The moving dome function is also implemented by a Technic rack winder.
This set is so good I ended up with 3 copies of it!
Wrap-Up
So that’s the 9 LEGO Space sets from 1988 (7 Futuron + 2 Blacktron).
Futuron had a decent second year with these 7 sets. Nothing stands out like the previous year’s monorail, but it’s nice to see more smaller sets in the theme.
Blacktron only had the 2 sets in 1988 (shown above together with the 3 sets from 1987), but both were excellent.
If only there was someone or something to combat the spread of this Blacktron plague! (Hint: stay tuned for Space 1989)
SEED Think Tank
The final 2 days of the SEED conference were a Think Tank focused on solving problems in science. 6 teams worked on prototyping solutions. 2 projects were selected for incubation in the next months. #SEED2019
DJ Bobo
15 years after our first stint in Switzerland and DJ Bobo is still a thing! (His name always cracks me up because “bobo” means something like silly in Portuguese.)
SEED Day 2
Cloudy morning in Davos on my walk in for day 2 of #SEED2019. Looking forward to getting hands on with code today after yesterday’s overview of various problems in science.
Problems in academia
I exited academia over 20 years ago. It was depressing to learn that all of the issues that led me to leave still exist today and may in fact have worsened. But on the bright side, many smart people have ideas for improving collaboration, equity, inclusion, etc. #SEED2019