Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It’s intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language{.wikilink} (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software on running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP).

http://www.arduino.cc/

Many thanks to zipMe who provided some extremely valuable links in the comments to my last entry. You could have invented monads is the monad tutorial I have always longed for.

It explains the basics (the monad interface) and then describes how these basics can be used to achieve the various stuff you always see monads being used for (sequential programming, side effects) all with very focused examples and excercises, without much Haskell background needed. Not too theoretical to recognize the connection to Haskell, nor too practical to provide insight about the ideas behind monads.

Quick, why does this give me a compiler error?

if      (dIntersectionZ <  box.GetChild(0,0,0).GetBox().Min.z) Assert(false);
else if (dIntersectionZ <  box.GetChild(0,0,1).GetBox().Min.z) z = 0;
else if (dIntersectionZ <  box.GetChild(0,0,2).GetBox().Min.z) z = 1;
else if (dIntersectionZ <= box.GetChild(0,0,2).GetBox().Max.z) z = 2;
else                                                           Assert(false);

The compiler complains that the else in the second line does not belong to any if.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it,” John Doerr proclaims, in an emotional talk about climate change and investment. Spurred on by his daughter, who demanded he fix the mess the world is heading for, he and his partners at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers embarked on a greentech world tour – surveying the state of the art, from the ethanol revolution in Brazil to Wal-mart’s (!) eco-concept store in Bentonville, Arkansas. KPCB is investing $200 million in green technologies to save the planet and make a profit to boot. But, Doerr fears, it may not be enough.

http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/09/the-pmarca-gu-1.html:

The first rule of career planning: Do not plan your career.

The world is an incredibly complex place and everything is changing all the time. You can’t plan your career because you have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. You have no idea what industries you’ll enter, what companies you’ll work for, what roles you’ll have, where you’ll live, or what you will ultimately contribute to the world. You’ll change, industries will change, the world will change, and you can’t possibly predict any of it.

Trying to plan your career is an exercise in futility that will only serve to frustrate you, and to blind you to the really significant opportunities that life will throw your way.

Career planning = career limiting.

The sooner you come to grips with that, the better.

The second rule of career planning: Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and pursuing opportunities.

…

via svn