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So I guess the first question is needs, followed closely by budget. Basically, how much bang per pound? Do I intend to use this as a mobile programming/educating station for myself. Battery should last a few hours, but doesn’t need to run the whole day. Gutless is fine, but I do prefer me The Juice. VALHALLA! Small because I’m lazy, no ten key is needed. Should I look into building my own? Grab a display and battery, solder a keyboard from parts, strap it all to a Beaglebone?
Oohhh… I could strap a Sparkfun Thing to give me wifi and battery charging circuit. Now that’s just dirty. That’s shiny and chrome right there.

Or in the market for Linux.
Not sure why it’s so hard for manufacturers to make Linux compatible hardware. I’m looking at you you Dell, HP, Lenovo, and the rest. Each of you sells laptops with Linux instances. It’s just, you charge an extra 500 or so.
Step 1, find working drivers for Linux, for the hardware you have in your Windows laptops.
Step 2, do an install and run a test suite to make sure did works.
Step 3, charge $500.

The search shall continue, kinda looking at System 76…

Transferred the beer to secondary, and cleaned my gear in preparation for my next brew day.
Disposed of Leviathan’s tank. It had an odor that may have been attached to his failed health. Another day. RIP.
Started working on the Shipper’s Dilemma. I began with the display part, and immediately started running into learning opportunities. First round through made a screen with a square in the corner. Next, I made an array of colors, and started iterating through them. The thing is, it just started the same color. Took a little bit (yeah rusty skills!), but I saw that I was delaying my variable to increment, assigning out a value, and assigning the color, all in the loop inherent to processing. A while loop inside the loop, or declaring the variable outside the main loop around have done the trick. Now it’s time to work on either a multi-dimensional array, or some clever way to keep track of XYZ’s. If ABC is easy as 123, does that mean XYZ is as easy as 242526? Is it an issue that I just went back to originally typing xyz and changes it to XYZ, just so I wouldn’t have to take into account the difference in ascii code from X to x? Also, phone keyboard, you don’t know the “word” ascii? Bwahahaha…
I also trimmed my beard and hair.
Reasons.

I’m inspired by the show Jessica Jones on Netflix. Jessica, as a raging alcoholic, keeps making light of being a day-drinker. This, minus the alcoholic, seems like something I should do. Idea:
Take pictures of myself with cocktails.
Title like pulp vampire books.
Apply titles and filters to images making book covers for The Day-Drinkers.

I totes amuse myself.

Self, this is for you. Yes you.
1108 NW 52nd.
Stoup.
Your welcome.

Getting back to the Shipper’s Dilemma.
Make a 3x3x3 matrix to use as a test setup.
Make an array of pseudo pieces to fill that area.
Display adding the pieces in, one by one in a isometric layout.
Show a counter for passes.
Show a time stamp for beginning to end.
Have a stop button which stops everything and changes to a Go button.
Stop on success.

Pieces are chosen, and rotation applied based on a random number. Use an incremented seed.

After success do this again, but bigger.

After starting to read that article last night about calculus, I decided to actually learn it this time. Whipped up the first video on MIT’s OpenCourseware and stayed getting my lecture on. I think I’ve finally aged enough, and have real goals enough, to see me through filling out my education.

Bonus points for Zeno.

Can You Solve the UK Intelligence Agency’s Christmas Puzzle? http://gizmodo.com/can-you-solve-the-uk-intelligence-agencys-christmas-puz-1747265899

I ended up with a stack of paper that would be dope to make beer bottle boxes with. I think I might be able to get a four pack in there. So, killing time waiting for a bus after work, I start googling those dimensions. It turns out that people only list off the volume, which is clearly printed on the label, often stamped in the glass, and in the freaking name;12oz bottle of beer. I’ll have to measure a bottle when I get home and start doing some maths and engineering.